Is this really the beginning of the end? Is this longest period of dominance in modern cricket history really over? Have Australia, finally, fallen off the perch that they have defended so imperiously for the best part of two decades?

Certainly, if you believe the pundits, the crown has slipped; the throne has been vacated and cheekily occupied by a team of fresh-faced usurpers from the sub-continent. Whether this is a permanent abdication, however, remains to be seen.

Anyone with an attention span longer than the average four-year-old will remember that these same questions were asked at the end of the Ashes tour, when England also beat the Aussies 2-0 in the finals of the tri-series. They will also remember that Australia went on to dominate their third consecutive World Cup. It is dangerous to read too much into these things.

'These were unchartered waters for players who had been feted as national heroes for their entire careers'


This time, however, the signs are slightly more concerning. The summer was proceeding according to plan up until the Sydney Test against India. After securing an unlikely, if controversial, victory in the dying minutes of that game, Australia’s confidence should have been sky high.

What no-one expected, however, was the storm that erupted in the wake of that game. The Australian side was viciously attacked by the foreign and domestic media, former cricket stars and even the Australian government. These were unchartered waters for players who had been feted as national heroes for their entire careers.

There has been enough written about the goings on in that Test and we will never know what really happened out on the field, but the reaction rattled the Aussies. Suddenly, everything was brought into question, not only their ruthlessness on the field, but also their personal integrity.

The attacks on Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke were unprecedented, with both players openly called cheats simply for adhering to a pre-tour agreement of claiming catches. It is clear that the view of these incidents depends greatly on the colour of the flag that they are viewed through, but it is unfair in the extreme to suggest that either of these players deliberately claimed a catch they knew to be grounded.

Nevertheless, the criticism hurt, and the effects were felt through the rest of the summer. Suddenly, there were glimpses of self-doubt, a fragility that was previously unseen and the Indian team masterfully exploited that.

The loss in the tri-series will see the Aussies lose the top spot in the ICC one-day rankings to South Africa. However, it would be wrong to read too much into that. The loss came at the end of a long summer – in more ways than one – and there is too much talent left in the team to write them off just yet.

It is easy to see, from the comfort of a lounge chair, where the Aussies went wrong in the finals of the tri-series. Obviously, the fragility of the batting line-up was the crux of the problem and, disappointingly, the batsmen fell prey to the same issues as in England in 2005 – a complete inability to play swing bowling with any degree of comfort.

Add to that the determination to dominate the bowling at all costs and you have a recipe for disaster. The lack of respect that the Australian batsmen show for anyone who bowls at less than 130km/h has caused them problems. Ponting’s choice to play aggressive pull shots less than 10 balls into his innings has seen him depart early on numerous occasions throughout the one-dayers. The same can be said for Clarke, Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds.

The Bhajji factor has also had an impact. Such is the determination of players, particularly Symonds and Matthew Hayden, to “destroy” Harbhajan Singh, resulted in their untimely departure on a number of occasions. Overall, Bhajji probably won the battles over the summer, although his personal reputation has taken a big hit.

There are plenty of things for the Australian cricket team to ruminate on as they decide how to recover from this summer. There is certainly a need for changes to be made to their on-field performances, not just in cricketing terms.

But there is no need for panic.

There is still the nucleus of a very good side and they should still win many more games than they lose. The trick is that they now have to earn their victories the hard way, through hard work and dedication. The rest of the world now knows that they are fallible and this side no longer instils fear in their opponents.

Interesting times ahead or, as Bob Dylan would have put it: 'The times they are a changing'. Maybe.