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Australia's baggy-green monopoly caps it all for cricketing success

Fifteen-match winning runs are an Aussie patent. It used to be Glenn McGrath, Steve Waugh and Shane Warne terrorising the opposition. Now it's Ricky Ponting and Co. Don't they get tired of dominating the game?

by Anup Pimpalkhare on 04 January 2008

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Ricky Ponting: Leading actor in world-beating run (gettyimages.com)

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How many of you have seen the old Manmohan Desai movies with their classic "lost and found" formula?

The story will start with a happy family with lots of kids, tragedy will strike and the family will get lost and divided. Come the ending and a family song reunites the entire family again. So many movies were made on this formula. The only difference was that every movie had different actors and a different family song.

Now let us apply this "same story, new actors" logic to the Australian cricket team. A few years back they were on a 15-match winning streak with Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne terrorising opposing batsmen while Justin Langer, the Waugh brothers, Damien Martyn and Ian Healy were putting tons of runs on the board. Australia were finishing off Tests in three and four days.

'Such is the hold of the baggy green that any player donning it becomes a world beater'

Now focus your attention to the end of 2007. Australia are yet again on a 15-match winning streak. McGrath, Warne and Gillespie have been replaced by Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Brad Hogg. Steve and Mark Waugh, Martyn and others have been replaced by Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Andrew Symonds as the juggernaut rolls on. The most amazing thing is that the Aussies remain the most potent force in cricket irrespective of who turns out for them. Such is the hold of the baggy green' that any player donning it becomes a world beater.

It is said that bowlers win matches and batsmen save them. So if you lose an important batsman or a bowler, it is evident that a team would struggle. All teams do. New Zealand did after Martin Crowe left. India did after Kapil Dev left. Pakistan did after Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis left.

ln the last five years Australia lost almost half of their side. But it just doesn't seem to matter. Before every series that the Aussies play we hear the same sound-bytes from the players, only the people saying them have changed. They perform ruthlessly on the field as before, only the performers have changed.

The same lines from the script are recited, only the actors taking the Aussies to victory have changed.

Comments (2)

by Partha Rajagopal on January 04, 2008

The Australian cricket standard is very high to start with. Thus when one set of players retire, the next set is almost at the same level. Even if they are not at par with the previous batch, the other teams have a steep gradient between influx and out flux of high quality players. Australia generates consistent performers, while the other teams mostly generate stars. Once the star burns out, there is no steady arrival of players of similar caliber. This Aussie team, minus McGrath and others, is still on top, because the other teams also have lost their key players to retirement and no worthy replacements have taken shape yet. Once the Fab four hang their boots, there will be similar vacuum on the Indian side, which will make the Aussie team relatively stronger again.

by Black Pom on January 28, 2008

As long as the BICC have the ICC by the 'Dukes' the game of cricket will die. Get rid of Speed and replace him with Hair, then we will ALL have level playing fields.