South Africa came down under, saw a crumbling empire, licked their lips and conquered them by humiliating the world champs in both Test and One Day series and went back home to a tumultuous welcome by SA cricket fans.
Immediately, arch rivals Kiwis landed in Australia when the Aussies were still healing their wounds, humbled them with two consecutive one day international wins by rubbing salt to their wounds in one hand and licking manuka honey on the other. This was the fifth straight one day match loss at home for Aussies, who were number two before the home series against All blacks and now dropped to third position on ICC One Day rankings. So from today’s match the series is a battle among equals as both Aussies and Kiwis are placed 3rd and 4th in the ICC One Day Rankings.
Who in the cricketing fraternity imagined this state for the once mighty Australian team a year back? Today’s match, the 3rd ODI though Aussies won, they had to go through some anxious moments when Grant Elliot and Brendon McCullum were still at crease for the 8th wicket partnership.
Before the start of today's match, the Australian supporters, cricket writers and the Australian media panicked at the consecutive 2 match loss at the hands of All blacks. The Australian selectors did show that they were worried and sent an SOS call to the rested Ricky Ponting to come and join the team. The man answered the call, team members rejoiced and the openers fired when they batted first. Brad Haddin scored a quickfire century with 3 sixes and 8 fours and was supported by Mr. Reliable Michael Clarke who scored 64 and supported Brad Haddin well in an opening partnership of 135 runs.
This lead the platform to set a target of 302 for the Kiwis and they fell short by 32 runs to lose the match and hand Australia their first win in the last 6 ODI’s played.
Kiwis just need a win in the remaining 2 ODI’s to win the series to hurt the Aussies badly. That might set an end of the Australian regime at the top. The team for the tour of SA is announced and it will be a daunting task for the Aussies to challenge the South Africans at their backyard.
At the moment nothing is going good for Aussie Cricketers. They were not in great demand in the recently held IPL Auctions for the IPL T20 competition beginning April 2009.
Will they bounce back to the top where they sat firmly and enjoyed for nearly 2 decades? Only time will tell. Let’s sit back and see how they manage to pull up.
-Anil Kumar
Hi Anil,
ReplyDeleteThe one who goes up has to fall. And, the fall much faster than the speed he rose. Anyways, coming back to your impeccable piece on the Australian Cricket, I really admire their practicality & professinalism in terms of implicating their future plans. That's why they were the leadres for almost couple of decades now. Their down-fall reminds of me of the fall of an Epic era of the mighty West Indian Cricket team of the late 70s & the 80s...likes of Garners, Richards, LLoyds, Gomes, Rohan Kanhais, Holdings, Marshals, Greenidges, Haynes.The only difference b/w the two is Windies were WILD ANIMALS but the Later were the TRAINED PROFESSIONALS. I feel the same the same way for the present Aussie team aswell. With the downfall of the McGraths, Waugh Brothers, Gillys, Warnes & now My all time favourite Hayden, The Bull. This was the team which had a full bench strentch of an ODI team.....They will come back & will come back big Really Big.