da bet7k： The West Indies may have had the last laugh but Australia won the war andultimately that is all that matters
David Wiseman19-May-2003The West Indies may have had the last laugh but Australia won the war andultimately that is all that matters. Steve Waugh and his side again put on adominant display to retain the Frank Worrell trophy. Their cricket with bothbat and ball was of the highest order and it was only fatigue which managedto haul them in.Many of the cricketers have been living out of a suitcase since lastOctober. There was the trip to Sharjah to play Pakistan, followed by a homeAshes series, followed by the World Cup, followed by the trip to theCaribbean. Seven months of straight cricket eventually catches up with you.Without the services of Shane Warne for the series and Glenn McGrath forhalf of it, the Australians covered for them well, everyone doing their bitfrom one to eleven.When Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer had a 200-run stand in the fourthTest, they broke the record for the amount of 200-plus run opening stands.It’s amazing how this pair have rejuvenated themselves consideringthey had both struggled to hold their places earlier in their careers. Now they arein the record books as one of the best opening duos in the history of thegame.Ricky Ponting has struck a rare vein of form and would have loved to haveplayed in the fourth Test to try and accomplish scoring ahundred in all four matches. His absence weakened the batting line-upconsiderably and had he been there, Australia may not have batted as poorlyin the fourth Test as they did.As good as Martin Love and Darren Lehmann are, they are not finding it soeasy converting their first-class runs into Test ones. When Love and Lehmannare the understudies, Australia suggested they could be as successful withtheir second XI, but it’s not so simple when the understudies are suddenly inthe limelight.Playing five bowlers was a courageous ploy by Australia and it worked. Onthe manufactured wickets in the West Indies, they realised that that was theway to go to collect 20 wickets, but even with the quintet they lackedvariety.You wouldn’t field two of the same type of spinner so why doesn’t the samehold true for the quicks? Australia would be well served by a left-arm pacerof some variety and even a medium-pacer in the Adam Dale mould.Andy Bichel, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee are all much of a muchness interms of variety only differing in speed.An interesting series for Stuart MacGill. He was the series leading wickettaker but also it’s most expensive. His 20 wickets came for 679 runs.When West Indies were chasing a world record 418, he bowled 36 overs, eightmaidens, 1 for 149. Four years ago he was preferred to Warne in thecorresponding match. Now it was his bad balls which were costing Australiathe clean sweep.He is not the bowler Warne is. He gets wickets from bad balls and thebatsman under-estimating him. And he would have conceded more sixes thenWarne has ever had. But his biggest weakness is also his biggest strength.He is a wicket taker and he does that well. The only issue is how many runs heleaks along the way before he claims them.The ‘dead rubber’ syndrome is an interesting one. Australia come out andfinish off a series like a hyena ravaging a carcass. When they have it inthe bag, obviously their motivation and desire drops off.What is the point of playing dead matches anyway? In golf matchplay, theydon’t play the dead holes. In Davis Cup, it’s much of a muchness in playingout the dead rubbers. In play-off sports, when the series is over – it’sover.Matches are scheduled even though they may be dead, but when the players aresuffering from cricket overload, it is expecting a tad much from them to stayfocused the whole way through.Some people who seemed to have more problems focusing were the umpires. Theamount of poor decisions in this series were staggering. Clearly neutralumpires is not the easy solution the ICC were hoping it to be. Something hasto be done about the standard of officiating in cricket. Basic lbw errorsare being made and catches behind the wicket are also being ruled onincorrectly.The umpires should be younger. The fact that Steve Bucknor and DavidShepherd are the top umpires in world cricket in 2003 as they were in 1993should be a concern. Bucknor is approaching 57 and Shepherd is 62. That istoo old.Unfortunately for the Australians, the series won’t be remembered for thebeautiful cricket they played, but their on-field misdemeanours.The Australians played some audacious and, at times, breathless cricket andthey inspired the West Indies to play way above themselves. In fact onlyagainst Australia could an opponent play such confident and free-flowingcricket and still be thumped 3-1.Again it was proved that if you wish to defeat Australia you have to breakworld records. You have to play better cricket then you have ever played andplay some of the best cricket your country has ever seen. Think Laxman andDravid. Think Butcher. And now think Lawson, Sarwan, Chanderpaul and Banks.The games were so action-packed due to the tempo which the Australians forceit to. In the second Test, 1510 runs were scored and there was never theslightest chance that the match would finish in a draw.But all that will be forgotten due to the antics of the Australian side. Thepuzzling thing is why the Australians feel the need to descend to that levelwhen their cricket is so good? They don’t have to. And even though they mayonly give as good as they get, it appears that they are the oneswho can dish it out but have trouble taking it.Players as role models of the game should take it upon themselves to solvethis blight on the game. If it never starts, it can’t turn ugly.