The Beginning of the End

If the Ashes are finally won by England, most cricket fans would start wondering whether this is the beginning of the end ?

But people who have been following cricket would have seen the signs earlier. The 2003-04 series against India was one such series. Both McGrath and Warne were out due to inujuries and a ban. And the bench strength was simply not upto the mark. Gillespie bowled with a lot of fire and spirit in that series but could not make an impression beyond getting Akash Chopra out and a highly debatable decision against Sachin(I personally agree with the umpire, when batsmen dont play shots they dont deserve any benefits).

Brad Williams, Nathan Bracken were decent bowlers who could bowl well if the pitch had something in it for them. Bichel was at the end of his career. In both Adelaide and Sydney the former the best batting track in Australia and the latter the spinning track there they suffered. McGill though he took wickets gave away far too many runs. He would feed off the pressure created by the other bowlers to bowl well which was simply no longer happening.

And then the tours in Sri Lanka and India were won by some excellent batting by Martyn and great bowling by Warne and McGrath. They also found batsmen of class in Katich and Clarke who are fitting replacements to the Waugh brothers. The former gritty like Steve and Clarke the flamboyant, free flowing batsman and a good player of spin to boot.

But they still have many problems as far as the bowling is concerned. Brad Williams is pushing 30, Tait is still a very raw quantity, Kasprowicz and Gillespie are old shadows of what they used to be. And theres still no replacement for Warne, someone who can bowl a tight line and take wickets as well. Lee seems to be the only one who poses a challenege, but he leaks too many runs and is not too good while bowling on flat pitches. Hauritz is nowhere near being international class, and Hogg is a good option but again he is on the wrong side of 30 as well.

The Aussie selectors too seem to have become softer. Hayden would not have played after the 3 matches on the tour. Gillespie would have been dropped but they tried to stick to something that would work but was sadly past its expiry date.

Right now the Aussies have enough batsmen to replace the existing lot in case they decide to drop someone, but the worrying thing is that they dont have any bowlers. And its the bowlers who win you test matches while the batsmen can only set it up.

Where Australian cricket goes from now will largely depend on the manner in which people like McGrath and Warne are phased out of the team giving them enough time to train the tyros the nuances of the dark arts of swing and seam, plus all the treacherous tricks of spin bowling.