Australian Cricket .... Beginning of the End ?

[Richard]

We've had a few injuries

And I honestly don't see what else matters.

Anyone who ever seriously uttered the phrase "making excuses" when someone mentioned that their team was missing 5 or 6 first-choice players didn't have a clue what they were on about.

Missing five or six first-choice players! That will have a massive effect on any team and to expect things to carry-on as they had been with a full-strength team is just plain madness!

Mark my words, with Ponting, Gilchrist, Symonds, Clarke, McGrath, and hell even Lee back, Australia are far, far more likely to return to winning ways as to carry on losing.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Prey - which "big" games do you refer to? The 1999 WC final Super Six game?

South Africa were a far better ODI team than Australia in the late 1990s.

The 1999 WC game and the semi-final, the ODI series finals throughout the 90s and so on. In the big games betwen the teams, Australia consistently came out ahead. South Africa won just as many if not more of the less important fixtures between the sides and against other opposition, but there's no doubt Australia were the best ODI team in the world in that period, precisely because when it came down to crunch games Australia consistently won. If Australia can't come out ahead in the big moments these days, it hardly matters if they qualify for the finals of the CB series every year with 4 games to go, because they won't be winning it.

edit: Not, mind you, that I'm saying they can't. It's just a hypothetical based on the idea of Australia crashing out of the WC. I still think Australia are favourites to win it.

 

[chipmonk]

Ponting has recoved .... and his leadership was the single most influetial factor for Australia's decline recently. Now with Ponting back at the helm things look much brighter.

 

[Richard]

The 1999 WC game and the semi-final, the ODI series finals throughout the 90s and so on. In the big games betwen the teams, Australia consistently came out ahead. South Africa won just as many if not more of the less important fixtures between the sides and against other opposition, but there's no doubt Australia were the best ODI team in the world in that period, precisely because when it came down to crunch games Australia consistently won. If Australia can't come out ahead in the big moments these days, it hardly matters if they qualify for the finals of the CB series every year with 4 games to go, because they won't be winning it.

edit: Not, mind you, that I'm saying they can't. It's just a hypothetical based on the idea of Australia crashing out of the WC. I still think Australia are favourites to win it.

Which ODI series finals? You'd be stretching credulity greatly to claim Australia were the better side in this tourney. SA hammered them and just happened to lose 2 games at the last.

Aside from that, SA and Aus haven't faced-off in a knockout situation other than that WC game (which no-one at the time knew was effectively a knockout).

SA won virtually everything they played in ODIs between WC96 and WC2003. The only time you could say they were genuinely defeated in that period was by Aus in the bilateral 7-gamer at home in 1996\97, by India in the bilateral in 1999\2000 (both by a single game), the Sri Lankan tri-series in 2000 (in the wake of Cronjegate), the Aus bilateral 7-gamer at home in 2001\02 (inexplicably), and the Morocco Cup of 2002.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Which ODI series finals? You'd be stretching credulity greatly to claim Australia were the better side in this tourney. SA hammered them and just happened to lose 2 games at the last.

You've just made my entire point right there all on your own. Congratulations.

 

[Richard]

Hardly. I was pointing-out that SA were patently the best side of that tournament regardless of the identity of he who lifted the trophy.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Hardly. I was pointing-out that SA were patently the best side of that tournament regardless of the identity of he who lifted the trophy.

Right, and my entire point is that regardless of the results in less important matches, Australia came out ahead when it mattered, which is why they were the best side in the late 90s. That series you mentioned is a perfect example.

That's always been a large part of Australia's superiority in ODIs, and if they can't do that any more, they aren't a dominant team. The WC should sort it out.

 

[Richard]

Right, and my entire point is that regardless of the results in less important matches, Australia came out ahead when it mattered, which is why they were the best side in the late 90s. That series you mentioned is a perfect example.

It's not. Because it wasn't a case of Australia leaving things until it really mattered, then performing. They simply weren't good enough. SA were by far the better side. SA just happened to play less well in the final 2 game - unfortunately that meant they were deprived of the trophy. But it didn't deprive them of their dominance which had already been exerted.

 

[silentstriker]

It's not. Because it wasn't a case of Australia leaving things until it really mattered, then performing. They simply weren't good enough. SA were by far the better side. SA just happened to play less well in the final 2 game - unfortunately that meant they were deprived of the trophy. But it didn't deprive them of their dominance which had already been exerted.

If you don't play well in the games that matter - you aren't the better side. Dominance is irrelevant if you don't win the biggest games.

 

[Richard]

No ODI "matters" outside the WC.

IMO, anyway.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Obviously the three match final series at the end of a lengthy triangular series "matters" far more than the matches that come beforehand, as they are must-win fixtures. Similarly, the knockout games in a WC "matter" far more than the group games at the start. Australia for nearly a decade have been virtually impossible to beat in the important ODIs, even though they gave up games fairly regularly at other points. That's why they've been the dominant ODI team, and South Africa weren't. Compare their records in the must-win games and you'll see the trend.

By the way, I'm not suggesting for a second that Australia didn't care about the earlier games in those series at all. Any international team goes out to win every game they play. It's more that at big moments, Australia generally came through better, and they had clutch players like the Waugh's, Warne and Bevan who could snap a poor form streak to win a game at a crucial time. The '99 WC is the best example you'll see of this, though the 97/98 series works too. In the end, it doesn't really matter too much what happens at other times, any more than it matters that England were competitive for large parts of three test matches in the recent Ashes series. What matters is the end result, when you're determining who the better side is.

 

[open365]

That's pretty simplistic. West Indies' domestic cricket in the 1970s and 1980s was every bit as strong as the Pura\ING Cup has been the last couple of decades. Yes, many West Indians played in England too but the seasons didn't clash, and they didn't get signed by a county before they'd shown themselves to be good players (ie in West Indian cricket). And the American-intrusion has, by all accounts, been grossly exaggerated. Other sports have always competed with cricket in all countries.

Yeh i had a feeling that the WI dominant period of the 60s-70s wasn't because their players player county cricket.

 

[Richard]

Obviously the three match final series at the end of a lengthy triangular series "matters" far more than the matches that come beforehand, as they are must-win fixtures. Similarly, the knockout games in a WC "matter" far more than the group games at the start.

Not really. The final team result of the C&U\VB\CB Series is not that important. All it is (like every other ODI) is World Cup preparation.

No-one's really going to care much that you won the C&U Series if you go out in the 1st round of the World Cup a year later. Which Australia weren't all that far from doing. Just imagine if they'd lost that West Indies game. Or if SA had won that final Super Six game? How many Aussies d'you reckon would be comforting themselves "ah, well, we beat them in the C&U Series last summer"? About none, I'd reckon.

 

[Richard]

Yeh i had a feeling that the WI dominant period of the 60s-70s wasn't because their players player county cricket.

Well the late 1960s and early 1970s wasn't a dominant period for WI - they didn't win a series in 7 years between '66 and '73. Their best players still played in England when not on international duty, obviously.

West Indian players, though, did profit, undoubtedly, from playing in English domestic cricket during their dominant period in '76-'86, but as I say - no-one got signed by a county without establishing themselves as a rather good player first. Not neccessarily in international cricket (Franklyn Stephenson, for example, never played a Test, though he probably would but for deciding to go on a Rebel tour, but he was one of the best overseas players ever) but in top-level cricket of some sort.

Of course, unestablished players often played league cricket and still do.

 

[Slow Love™]

Not really. The final team result of the C&U\VB\CB Series is not that important. All it is (like every other ODI) is World Cup preparation.

No-one's really going to care much that you won the C&U Series if you go out in the 1st round of the World Cup a year later. Which Australia weren't all that far from doing. Just imagine if they'd lost that West Indies game. Or if SA had won that final Super Six game? How many Aussies d'you reckon would be comforting themselves "ah, well, we beat them in the C&U Series last summer"? About none, I'd reckon.

Can't help feeling you're perpetually missing Faaip's point, Richard. The argument he's making is that Australia had a tendency to WIN those important, decisive or "crunch" games, and the Saffies had a tendency to LOSE (or tie, in the '99 debacle ) them - and pointing out that Australia could have easily lost some of those matches only clarifies the disparity in mental strength between the teams when under pressure or in crucial circumstances. Your responses here (particularly this one, which really deserves some kind of award, IMO) are actually confirming his point rather than arguing against it.

 

[Richard]

My point is and always has been that no ODIs outside the World Cup really matter in terms of team-results.

Therefore that you can only make a "choker" \ "perform when it matters" argument based on said (World Cup) games.

 

[Slow Love™]

My point is and always has been that no ODIs outside the World Cup really matter in terms of team-results.

Therefore that you can only make a "choker" \ "perform when it matters" argument based on said (World Cup) games.

That's only in your opinion though, and in terms of the South African cricket team wanting to win ODI tourneys, be they their own home series, the VB/CB series or whatever, I doubt they would share your viewpoint when the series is at stake. You're at your most tested in those situations, and his point is that they showed a fairly marked tendency to fail in that aspect - which is particularly interesting if, as you do, you rank them as a superior team.

But if this really was your opinion from the start, you'd have been better served not attempting to counter the other examples he raised. (I'm also not sure it really helped to name all those exceptions, including two losses to Australia at home, to South Africa winning "nearly everything" between the '96 WC and 2003, either, but I guess that's a different argument, maybe.)

 

[Richard]

Well when they're an exception on about 5 to 1, I'd say they're worth naming...

Sure, when you're in the course of a series you're trying your damndest - but equally, within a few days a ODI series is near enough forgotten. And if you win the World Cup, everything that goes in the last 4 years is forgotten.

 

[Slow Love™]

Well when they're an exception on about 5 to 1, I'd say they're worth naming...

Sure, when you're in the course of a series you're trying your damndest - but equally, within a few days a ODI series is near enough forgotten. And if you win the World Cup, everything that goes in the last 4 years is forgotten.

Yeah, I kinda agree with that to a degree, but the choking thing is more about the moment, in terms of how you feel with the series/tourney at stake. Though obviously, if a tendency is identified in your past, that can sometimes have an additional effect on the pressure you feel - and I daresay it does.

As to the exceptions you pointed out, I think I mainly found it funny that there were two defeats at home against Aus in there, as well as the (non-genuine by your summation) loss in the Australian C&U in '98.

 

[Richard]

Well it just goes to show that SA have until the most recent series been at their worst against Australia.

Given that Australia on several occasions haven't even been their closest challengers as best-in-the-World, I don't see that it's significant so far as "they can't beat the best" is concerned.

In fact, they were the only team to have the wood over Sri Lanka, the World Champions, after they won the 1996 WC.