Is it the beginning of the end of the Australian dominance in cricket ?

Sports have been a fascination for us since ages. Great athletes have also been great entertainers. Sportsperson are able to do difficult things quite easily, which would have been unimaginable for people like you and me. Novak Djokovic returning a Roger Federer serves without any fuss. Usain Bolt doing a 100 metres dash in 9.79 sec with a yawning gap. Bret lee bowling a delivery at 95 miles per hour and astonishing we find Rahul Dravid cover driving it for a boundary. So what separates the good from the great? What separates the great from the legend?

These are the questions which have tormented all connoisseurs of sports. The answer is that most of these sportspersons are naturally gifted. Every Tom, Dick and Harry can’t become Tiger Woods. If one can cover a Bret lee ball boundary which most us can’t even see it coming. So we have to accept the fact that these guys are naturally gifted. Another feature which differentiates the sportsperson is practice. They toil for hours to get the perfection. The feature of sportspersons can be their passion. They have an inherent drive, hunger which keeps them going. The important thing is that they are able to sustain that hunger and drive through out their career. We can understand from the fact Sachin Tendulkar is able to sustain the intensity for around 20 years.

It is understandable to find individuals dominating their sport for quite some time. But it is just incredible to find a team maintaining their dominance over a long period of time. We have seen the Brazilians dominate the game of football, West Indies dominate cricket for around two decades. Next is the Australian cricket team. Australian dominance can be dated back to early nineties under the captaincy of Allan Border. Border can be given credit for forming a solid team. Of course, the team under border can’t be called as invincible. But definitely it was a solid team. It went on to win the 1987 World cup. The Australian team gained a proper direction under the captaincy of Mark Taylor. It came close to winning the 1996 world cup. The Australian team became really ruthless under the captaincy of Steven Waugh. Steve was handy batsman. He advocated the concept of mental disintegration under which the bowlers and fielders were given a free rein to torment the batsmen with words. Obviously his team consisted of a bunch of talented, professional and great players. Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie, Michael Kasprowicz were simply outstanding in bowling. These guys would probe into a batsmen’s weakness by relentlessly hitting the right areas.

Opening was in the hands of Mathew Hayden, Justin Langer. Both would invariably give a solid start to the proceedings. Ricky Ponting comes at number three who is considered on of the best batsmen in the world. Steven Waugh, Mark Waugh, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist yielded a solid middle order. During this period Australian dominance was almost taken for granted. Not many sides were able to challenge their supremacy. However Waugh’s team was not able to win a series in India which he famously termed it as the last frontier.

The next leader was Ricky Ponting. Ricky was able to maintain the supremacy to some extent. He was able to capture the last frontier. However the team started signs of weakness after the departure of great players like Glenn McGrath, Warne, Gilchrist, and Langer. Their replacements were not able to emulate their worthy predecessors. Many weaknesses were brutally exposed. India sensing an opportunity handed them a 320 run defeat. It was Australia’s biggest defeat in around 18 years. The defeat was so comprehensive that the Indian dominated them in all departments of the game. It was also so humiliating that everyone is running for cover.

I’m sure the other teams are going to take inspiration from this point of inflection and bring the Australian hegemony to an end.