Up Down Under

In December, when Adam Gilchrist opted out of the Australian team for thefifth match of the home triangular series due to injury, the question arose asto who would open the batting with Matthew Hayden. As many as four Australiansraised their hands to take first crack at Sri Lanka: skipper Ricky Ponting, theelegant Damien Martyn, the pugnacious Darren Lehmann and wacky replacementkeeper Ryan Campbell.

Eventually, Lehmann got the vote, and he dutifully proceeded to smash theLankan bowlers disdainfully all over WACA for a century in even time. Truth is,each of those four could have opened the batting, and done a competent job ofit.

This one incident captures many reasons why this current Aussie outfit is thebest in the business today. It demonstrates the depth of talent in Australiancricket. It highlights the high degree of flexibility and preparedness amongplayers to change costumes, and perform to the demands of a situation. It speaksvolumes for their willingness to play roles they wouldn’t have otherwise drawnin the regular game plan. And do it well.

It’s a package that has neither sprouted overnight nor has been the resultof some right configuration of stars. It’s been a journey, charted by men withvision and ideas, men who are open to criticism, men willing to take risks andembrace change, men who recognise that the quest for sporting excellence is anongoing endeavour. And, like most journeys, the path hasn’t been straight, butfilled with advances and retreats, punctuated by trial and error.

Two summers ago, during that famous tour to India, the Australians startedplaying musical chairs with their team selection for the one-dayers. They calledit the rotation policy. The brainchild of then-captain Steve Waugh and coachJohn Buchanan, it involved giving each member in the squad of 14-16 players anequal opportunity to play. It was somewhat similar to the pitching rotation inbaseball, where teams play 160-odd games in a season, but each pitcher starts,on an average, in around 30 of those.

The Aussies, through this rotation policy, were suggesting a similarreduction in workload for their key players in a busy cricketing calendar. Inother words, they were abandoning the concept of the best combination of 11players turning out game after game. Lengthening playing careers, keepingplayers match fit and hungry to succeed were just some of the objectives of therotation policy.

The Aussie think-tank figured that throwing in more players into the fieldwould increase bench strength, and shuffling their roles would make them moreflexible in tackling match situations. By extension, it would also reduce theaura of indispensability that surrounded the top players. They wanted to get toa point where any playing 11 was good enough to win a match, and so wereconstantly making two to four personnel changes in the side, with an equalnumber in the batting order. Such was the reservoir of talent coming through,Australia could afford to experiment.

With players coming in and going out, and fewer opportunities up for grabs,the competition for places was stiff. It was a potent motivational tool, but itcould backfire by breeding insecurity among players. The scope for failures hadbeen reduced. The rotation policy also sometimes took away the momentum -- forinstance, a player would get a big score but yet would find himself out of theteam in the next match. It was the ultimate team concept, which required takingplayers into confidence. In return, it asked the players to understand andadapt.

The rotation policy was based on sound cricketing logic. But for it to beaccepted as a workable strategy, Australia had to continue with their winningways. Which they did, winning the series against India and swamping England andPakistan in the NatWest triangular later that year. Experts, though, were stilldivided on this random system of entry and exit of players.

Meanwhile, the Australians stuck to their guns, and continued to chop andchange. The rumblings continued. In late-2001, after Australia lost the firstthree matches of the eight-match round robin stage in the home triangular,featuring New Zealand and South Africa, the criticism reached a pitch. TheAussies were forced to relent, and the rotation policy, in the form it wasconceived, was shelved. But not abandoned.

Since then, the Australians haven’t followed the rotation policy in letter,but they have followed it in spirit, allowing for a certain degree offlexibility. No more do they change for the sake of change. Changes in line-upare now dictated more by player form, opposition strength and the big picturesignificance of each match. So while they always field their best side for theimportant games, they are inclined to give reserve players a hit in the deadrubbers.

In this grand design, they continue to experiment with new combinations andtactics, as well as prepare for contingencies. Halfway through the league stageof the World Cup, Australia is the only side among the Cup contenders that hasgiven all its players at least a game. Designated stand-in keeper Jimmy Maherhas even had an outing with the gloves.

Maher, in fact, epitomises the spirit behind the rotation policy and the waysin which it has shaped this Australian side into the formidable unit it is.Maher, a player on the fringes for a while, has played a multitude of rolessince he broke into the team during the 5-1 away series mauling of South Africain early 2002. In the second match of the series, Maher dropped anchor at numberthree to score a match-winning 95. The very next match, he came in at number sixin a run-chase, and smashed an unbeaten 43 of 32 balls, adding 39 for the lastwicket along with Nathan Hauritz in a dramatic last-ball win. And he can alsokeep wickets.

Maher, who has been groomed to play the role of the ‘floater’, isn’t astray case. In the recently-concluded home triangular, where they won nine oftheir 10 matches, injuries took quite a toll on their players. For most of thosematches, they had to do without the bowling trinity of McGrath, Gillespie andWarne. Their places were taken by seamers Brad Williams and Nathan Bracken,chinaman bowler Brad Hogg, and batting all-rounder Michael Clarke. And each oneof them delivered, often at crucial times.

The contributions of such newer, lesser-known players in recent times is asignificant plus for the Australian side. By giving them opportunities, theAussies ensure that they have a reasonably-large pool of players good enough tocompete at the highest level who aren’t overawed when it comes to the crunch.What they have is an embarrassment of riches.

Just look at who’s sitting on the sidelines back home and what they havebeen up to in their domestic one-day competition, the ING Cup. There’s SteveWaugh. Pensioned out of the shorter format by the Aussie selectors a year ago,his batting is a huge reason why his state side, New South Wales Blues, made alate dash and, yesterday, won the ING Cup.

In the final, chasing 208, Waugh smashed 88 of 55 balls, steering his side tovictory in just the 27^th over. Then, there’s Test opener JustinLanger, who led the ING Cup batting averages (86 against his name) and was thesecond-highest run-getter in the competition. That’s the quality of batsmenAustralia can’t accommodate in the national side.

In Ryan Campbell, they have a competent keeper-batter in the wings. And inthe bowling department, there’s the disgraced Warne, Bracken and Williams. Allthis while, Andy Bichel continues to hone his credentials of being the best 12^thman around. While teams are trying to figure out whom to play, Australia isscratching its head on whom to drop.

So far, Australia haven’t felt Warne’s absence in the World Cup, thoughadmittedly their bowlers are still to encounter a big-match, nerve-tuggingsituation. It’ll be interesting to see how the Australians in general and Hoggin particular respond when the heat is on and there’s no Warne to weave hismagic.

Before the competition, Glenn McGrath said the Australians were looking towin the Cup without losing a game. It’s a statement that smacks of arroganceand belittles the opposition. But, it’s arrogance backed by confidence andconviction. Realistically speaking, the Aussies are capable of matching up tothose high expectations. No other side in world cricket today, and few in thehistory of the game, can pull off such a run. Australia can.

Australia presently has more players with the talent and the ability tocompete at the highest level with success than all cricket-playing countries.And what separates them from the chasing pack is this innate ability to pulltogether as a team and, more often than not, put into practice what is laid outon the drawing board back in the dressing room.

They are a team of individuals who possess boundless talent, a wonderful workethic, the drive to maintain a high intensity level, the tenacity to dig deep,the confidence to take on the best, and a fierce desire to protect theirbastion.

Undeniably, Australia is the best cricketing side in the world today, in bothversions of the game. Their superiority is more evident in the longer version,which demands a team play good cricket over long stretches.

In the shorter version, too, their claim to the throne is uncontested, thoughthey have a lower winning percentage than Test matches. Blame it on the one-dayformat, which brings it all down to 100 overs of cricket. On some days, everyteam will play to its potential, and raise its game.

That’s the reason Australia might yet not win this World Cup. Only the verybrave would bet against them not making the semi-finals. But after that, each ofthe four semi-finalists would have an even shot at the title. That’s thebeauty -- and cruelty -- of the knockout format. All it takes is a brilliantinnings, a brilliant spell, a team on top of its game.

In the league games, Brian Lara and Stephen Fleming did South Africa in, andthere’s as good a chance as any that someone could do the same to the Aussiesin those shootouts. If they do, they will be crowned world champions, but theystill won’t be the best in the world. In the foreseeable future, that mantlewill continue to rest with the men from Down Under.