Australia has dominated World Cricket since early 90s to the mid-2000s. Their rigorous systems, planning and strategy and careful selections moulded many a great and quite a few effective players in the last two decades. Hence the present deterioration is tough to see.
India and Australia have in some senses faced a similar phase in these last few years – the greats of the game from both teams were expected to leave the team one after another. If Australia saw the last of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist, Mathew Hayden and Ricky Ponting on the International Cricket field, India have lost Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar (so far in the shorter format).
The selectors in India have often been accused of being lackadaisical and not pre-empting a plan for the phase-out, but the restraint they exercised and the wisdom they saw in having a potent combination of experience and youth, seems to have worked well for the team.
As for Australia, the selectors have been far too inconsistent with too much of chopping and changing. They have tended to act with what could only be called conceit and myopia – the manner in which the likes of Michael Bevan, Brad Hodge, Simon Katich, Nathen Bracken, Brad Haddin, Nathan Lyon and Shaun Marsh have been handled in the last few years goes to explain this. The first four had their career cruelly cut short despite having the quality, age, fitness and skills to command a place in the team for a few years more. Different selectors have served on the job for Australia in the last decade – Trevor Hohns, Andrew Hilditch and John Inverarity but they’ve all been guilty of the same mistake, severing the life of a player much before the use-by-date and ringing in inconsistent changes.
Recently, Mike Hussey’s public admission that he was forced to keep his retirement plans under wraps to protect his place in the last few games, speaks of the lack of trust bred by Cricket Australia and their team of selectors. It’s only a matter of hypothesis now, the kind of impact a senior pro like Hussey would have had on the dressing room had his superior fitness levels and skills been used for a year or two more.
To let bygones be bygones, Australia could do well with some strong leadership and trust, to focus on building the team together. Michael Clarke along with Micky Arthur could work on mending fences with seniors in the team including Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson. High-handedness and a lack of consistency in dealing with disciplinary issues as we have seen, have had an adverse impact on the environment of the dressing room.
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