Having won the away odi series against Bangladesh by a clean sweep of 3-0, South Africa shoved Australia from the number one slot in the ICC odi rankings for teams on 14.03.08. Honestly, Australia's dominance in shorter version of the game in the recent years was first challenged when they were beaten by England in the Commonwealth Bank Series in 2006-07, and then humiliated (a clean sweep of 3-0) by New Zealand in New Zealand. But very soon they recovered, and came back strongly by winning the World Cup 2007 in West Indies. But then in T-20 World Cup in South Africa, they were outplayed by India at the semi-finals: India won the match by 15 runs. But soon they took their revenge and convincingly defeated India in India by a margin of 4-2. Then they also won the Chappel-Hadlee trophy against New Zealand. But then happened the devastating defeat against India in the Commonwealth Bank Series in 2008. Now adding insult to injury South Africa has toppled them from the numero uno slot. Before discussing whether Australia can again bounce back to their place of dominance, let me point out some factors behind their debacle against India.
1. Lack of penetration in bowling attack: Unfortunately, after retirement of Warne and McGrath, a vacuum was created, which has yet not been filled up. The replacement of Shane Warne, the wizard of OZ, will be extremely difficult to find; Australia has to live with this fact. But in the medium pace department two new players have tried to put them in McGrath's shoes. At least, from statistical point of view, M Johnson has shown some promise, but Stuart Clark, neither actually, nor statistically, could live up to the expectation. There is hardly any similarity between Stuart Clark and McGrath except for the speed. While McGrath's average was 21.98, Stuart Clark's is 29.88 (Johnson's is 25.41, Bracken's is 21.89, Bret Lee's is 22.80, Warne's was 25.82, Gillespie's was 25.42). Speaking of runs per over, while McGrath's was 3.87 (that was top class), Stuart Clark's is 5.06 (Johnson's is 4.80, Bracken's is 4.37, Lee's is 4.71, Warne's was 4.25, Gillespie's was 4.21). As far as strike rate is concerned, while McGrath's was 34, Stuart Clark's is 35.2 (Johnson's is 31.7, Bracken's is 30, Lee's is 29, Warne's was 36.4, Gillespie's was 36.2). Source: http://stats.cricinfo.com/baggygreen/engine/records/averages/bowling.html?class=2;id=2;type=team
A composite index (c.i.= ave*eco*sr) is a good indicator to measure the effectiveness of a bowler; the lower the value the better the bowler. From that point of view we see that Stuart Clark (5443) is way behind McGrath (2892). Michel Johnson's composite index is 3867, Hopes' 7011, Lee's 3114, Warne's was 3994, Gillespie's was 3874. Among the current players Bracken has an excellent c.i. of 2870. So, from statistical point of view we see that while Stuart Clark is no match for McGrath, Bracken and Johnson's records are good. But here lies the very important fact that eludes boring statistics. The fact is the calibre of McGrath and Warne's wicket taking abilities when the team required it. We saw them snatching victory from the jaws of defeat on many occasions. But Bracken could not do this in the last series. He is a rather defensive bowler who relies more on the fault of a batsman rather than taking the initiative. Bret Lee tried very hard with some genuine aggression throughout the series. But as he was the only true strike bowler to deal with, the Indian batsmen played him with caution, and safely negotiated his overs in the finals. Stuart Clark could never threaten the Indians with his lacklustre bowling. James Hopes is a mediocre bowler, so is Hogg. Thus we saw that the Australian bowlers failed to deliver goods when the team desperately needed it. Some cricket commentators in Australia held the batting responsible for the defeats rather than pointing fingers at the bowling. I do not necessarily disagree with the fact that the batting, mainly because of failures of Ponting, M. Clarke and Gilchrist, could not live up to the expectations (but I don't agree that they were out of form). But in the past (remember the 1999 world cup semifinal and the match before semifinal against South Africa), we have seen many times the Australian formidable bowling attack saving the grace for the team. That was missing this time.
2. Lack of focus: Previously, it was the Australians, who by various means, such as general on field sledging or targeting certain key players throughout the series of verbal assault or launching assorted attacks from their patriotic press outside the field on the touring side, got the psychological advantage. But this time the exactly opposite thing happened. The young, confident Indian brigade met fire with fire in such as way that stunned the Aussie brigade, and they themselves lost the focus. On the contrary, the targeted player Harbhajan Singh relished the challenge, and the dispute had no impact on his performance. Also, the Australian squad was deeply submerged in hubris (recall Ponting's uttering before the final that that the third final would not be required). Thus we see they underestimated the Indian side, and the result was that indeed the third final was not required but at the cost of Australia's loss. In addition to these factors, the big money offers at the IPL league, the surprisingly discriminating auctioning prise for players might have caused shifting of focus.
3. Question mark over batting: I know the Australian cricketers deeply resent this question, but over the years there have been some question marks about their ability to handle quality swing or spin bowling. On flat or sporting tracks, the Aussie batsmen bat like kings, but on bowler-friendly tracks they have struggled over the years. It was indeed disappointing for Aussie supporters to see Ponting struggle against rookie Ishant Sharma. Also, in the finals they struggled to have an answer to Praveen Kumar's swing bowling.
4. Lack of preparedness: The newcomer Praveen Kumar proved a big surprise factor to the Aussies. Clearly, the Aussies did not do good homework to counter his bowling. Also, the strategy against Sachin, Dhoni and few other Indian batters was not correct. I do not want to point out the mistakes.
5. Degradation of standard of fielding: We saw a lot of catches going down throughout the Australian summer, which is very unnatural to their high standard of fielding.
Now the big question is can Australia bounce back to regain their supremacy in the limited version of the game? I will try to find out the answer in my next post.
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