Australia on decline ?

India crushed Australia by 320 runs in Mohali to win the second test and take a 1-0 lead in the series. India is the only team to have consistently competed with Australia in last 10 years. Be it Kolkata 2001, Adelaide 2004 or Perth 2008, India did have the measure of Australia in some important games. Still this victory in Mohali is unprecedented in many ways and may be a reflection of what we see in future. The era of Australian dominance over the world, may finally be coming to an end.

A surprising thing in the defeat was the way Australia played. Winning and losing are part of the game and even the best of sides can have an off day, but the way you play determines what percentage of matches you win. I remember the second test at Edgbaston in 2005 Ashes series, where Australia was set a target of 293. They resumed the final day, with an almost hopeless situation at 175-8, but played aggressively, fought till the end and eventually lost only by 2 runs. Though Australia lost the test and series, they played like a champion team and lost like one (and mauled England 5-0 in the next Ashes series).
But in the Mohali test, Australia was defensive from the outset and lacked the aggression and fighting spirit that made them the no. 1 team in the world. After India piled up 469 runs in the first innings, the Australian team of yesteryears would have counter attacked and taken on the Indian bowling, instead this Australian team crawled to 269 from 101.4 overs at a run rate of 2.6! Also while chasing 515 runs in the fourth innings they over-attacked and were reduced to 58-5. Though this may seem to be aggressive cricket, in reality it was a desperate move by a team lacking in confidence. It was as if they accepted the defeat even before the innings started. Successful Australian teams in past scored over 4 runs an over by just playing their natural game, not by trying to hit every ball out of the ground.

India scored 314 runs in their second innings at a run rate of almost 5 runs per over losing only 3 wickets. I can hardly remember any other innings where Australian bowlers were treated with such disrespect. None of the three fast bowlers or the spinners looked like taking a wicket. The most striking thing was the inability of the fast bowlers to reverse swing the ball, whereas the Indians did it at will. It was hard to believe that it was the same pitch where Australia was bundled out for 269. In past Australian bowlers did have days when batsmen had the better of exchanges, none less than the famous Kolkata test in 2001, where VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid denied them a wicket for the whole day. But usually this was because of some exemplary cricket by the batting team. In Mohali, Indian batsmen played good cricket, but not good enough to justify Australia leaking 314 runs at a rate of 5 runs an over. The decline in their bowling prowess just shows how important Glen McGrath and Shane Warne were to Australia.

The Mohali test may just not be a defeat for Australia, but a beginning to the end of their dominance of world cricket. Cricket, like any other sport, is played as much in the mind as in the field. You can bounce back after a defeat in the field, but if you lose mentally it requires a big effort to come back. Unfortunately, Australia seems to be losing the mental game. One of the great sights in test cricket was aggressive Australian batsmen scoring fast runs and making a mockery of world class bowlers; which may not happen anymore now. On the other hand, the rest of the teams will no longer fear Australia as they used to. The good part is that games will be more competitive and we will no longer see any 16 match winning streaks, but the sad part is this happened due to lowering of the bar by Australia rather than others raising it.

Roger Federer and the Australian Cricket Team

Roger Federer and the Australian Cricket team(ACT) make an interesting comparison. There are a lot of similarities between them and yet there are some startling differences; differences which separate legends from champions.

Both Roger Federer and ACT have dominated their respective sport in the last few years. Roger Federer has won 13 and reached 17 finals of the last 22 grand slams. The consistency with which Federer played, especially in the grand slams, made him such a force that most of the players lost even before stepping on to the court. Similarly, Australia has dominated test and one day cricket over the last decade. They have won, an incredible three consecutive world cups and have won test series all over the world, including India which Steve Waugh, the former Australian captain called the final frontier. Like Roger Federer, Australia won half the battle even before taking the field.

Surprisingly, the decline of Roger Federer and ACT has also coincided. 2008 is the year where Roger Federer lost Wimbledon, a grand slam which he had won for the last five years. He lost the No.1 ranking which he held for a record 237 weeks. Though, he won the US open, he lost the aura of invincibility which surrounded him. 2008 is also the year in which Australia lost to India 2-0 in the test series, first time in almost 10 years where they failed to win a test in a series. Also, the manner in which they lost has made other teams believe they can also win against Australia. As with Federer, though Australia is still better than most teams, they are no longer invincible.

But there are some big differences between them as well. Australia come across as a group of overconfident and arrogant cricketers, with no respect for the opposition and who would go to any extent to win a match; remember Sydney test? Under the garb of mental disintegration, they were the ones who introduced sledging into the gentleman's game. On the other hand, being humble in victory is one of Federer's traits. He always respects his opponents irrespective of their rankings, although this should not be misunderstood as lack of confidence.

Now that both Federer and ACT are on decline, the differences are even more clear. When Federer lost the epic Wimbledon final, he had nothing but praise for Nadal. In fact, after every loss (and he has lost quite a few this year), he always gives credit to the opponent. He is a perfect example of someone who is gracious in defeat. ACT, on the other hand are sore loser. Mathew Hayden blamed the incidents in the "Third World" for the series defeat against India, as if India were playing in some other world. Instead of accepting that they were beaten by a better team, Australia is trying to find excuses for the defeat.

Federer is humble in victory and gracious in defeat, whereas ACT is the exact opposite. Hope Australia learns a few lessons from Roger Federer and maintain the dignity of gentleman's game. Though I am an optimist, I somehow feel I am hoping against hope !

8 - 1 field, "negative" tactics ?

At the end India comprehensively beat Australia in Nagpur test and won the series 2-0. Mahendra Singh Dhoni has come in for a lot of flak for his "negative" strategy in third day's first session, where he employed a 8-1 field and asked the bowlers to bowl wide of off stump. Former Australian player Ian Chappel has gone so far as to say that rules should be changed so that not more than two-third of the players can be on one side ! What next? Should it be made mandatory to have three slips and a gully to make cricket more interesting ?

The strategy was defensive, but not negative, and definitely not easy!!! The way many people, especially Australians, reacted to it suggests that anybody can bowl to a 8-1 field and restrict the opposition. But it requires great amount of skill and accuracy to bowl to such a field, for any ball even on the middle stump will fetch a boundary. Even Australians tried bowling to such a field in India's second innings, but could not implement it successfully and India still scored at a runrate of around four. Also, if a bowler is bowling defensively the batsman can do something innovative to break the bowler's rhythm and force a field change. The Australian batsmen did nothing of that sort and allowed the Indian s dominate them.

The surprising thing is that the criticism comes from the Australians, who themselves have this attitude of win-at-all-costs. At least, India did not claim bump catches to win the match. I remember the league game between Australia and West Indies in 1999 world cup. Australia needed to win the match against West Indies to progress to Super league stage. But they wanted West Indies to come through as well, for that meant they could carry points into the super league. Chasing 111 for a victory, Australia slowed down considerably after reaching around 90 runs and took another 15 overs to score the remaining runs. All this just to increase West Indies' net runrate and enable them to reach super league. Isn't this negative tactics ?

Sometime back I read in cricinfo about the bowler who introduced googly into the game ( though, I dont remember his name or the year ). Surprisingly, people's initial reaction was that it was against the spirit of the game. A leg spinner should bowl only leg spin and should not "fool" the batsman by bowling offspin in leg spin action. Slowly people realised how difficult it was to disguise googly and it indeed required a lot of skill. The 8-1 field was not only a good strategy, but Indians implemented it in very well. Australians have once again proved that they are hyprocrites and sore losers !!!