Dubai : When Steve Waugh's Australian team were busy setting up a record of consecutive Test wins between 1999-2001, a common debate among cricket enthusiasts was if they were even greater than Don Bradman's 1948 Invincibles.
Under his leadership, Australia re-secured the record with an unstoppable 16 Test wins while they were unbeatable in all forms of the game.
Audio: Graham Gooch talks from the
Credit: Radio2
Gulf News caught up with the former world number one batsman, who until recently held both records for most Test appearances of all time (168) and victories under a Test captain's leadership (41) during a promotional event for the Laureus awards in Berlin last week.
Given his eight wins from nine Ashes Series appearances, few are better placed to answer questions on the forthcoming series Down Under between two old foes. Following are the excerpts:
GULF NEWS: What are your thoughts on the upcoming Ashes Series?
STEVE WAUGH: It will be a close series. Both sides will be apprehensive going into the first Test not knowing quite how it's going to go. Australia will probably be slight favourites purely because it's in Australia and we haven't lost there for 24 years. If either side has a key injury that could really affect their chances. England has a real good chance, it's going to be 3-2 but I'm not sure which way, I'd say Australia due to home advantage, but only just.
Is this a good time for England to face Australia?
They've come to Australia in the past and talked about it but in their heart, they really believe they've got a chance this time. You can sense that this is a big opportunity for them to seize the moment. Strauss hit 200, Cooke and Pietersen are having a good time in the middle. Everyone's done really well in preparation.
They've planned meticulously under Andy Flower so they know the direction they're heading in — that's got to be a positive. It's an interesting move sending their bowlers to Brisbane and not playing their last match against Australia A — I'm not 100 per cent sure whether that's a good move.
What has Australia got to look out for?
Their frontline attack is good. Anderson is in very good form... he's swinging the ball and that's Australia's nemesis: swing bowling. If he can get that going, he'll cause some damage. But his record against Australia is a bit iffy so he'll have some doubts mentally as to whether he's good enough. Broad is a very key component to England's bowling. He's aggressive, hits the deck hard and I think he'll have a good tour of Australia. Then you've got Swann who's been one of the world's best bowlers this year. In general, their frontline bowling attack is capable of taking 20 wickets.
Is Ponting the right captain to take things forward?
I'm sure the players will say he's the right guy for this job at the moment. The outcome of the series will be interesting if Australia wins he'll continue but if they lose there'll be a couple of question marks. So this is a big series for him and the team. Knowing Ricky he'll be determined and I wouldn't bet against him doing well.
Is the Australian slide partly because of the likes of yourself and other greats retiring?
Everyone's replaceable... you've got to move on. There's a lot of talk about Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath all the time. Australia's got to get past that and we've got some excellent players. Mitchell Johnson's figures are probably better than Glenn McGrath's at the same time — so that shows we've got serious talent, we can't keep on saying I wish we could still have these players. We've got really good players coming through in Phil Hughes, Usman Khawaja, Callum Ferguson, bowling wise Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and James Pattinson.
Will the Ozzie's hangover be lessened with an Ashes win?
All Australians want us to win this Ashes. As I said we've got to move on from the era where we dominated, that's gone now. We're working hard we've still got a very side but the expectations have probably got to be dropped down a bit from the public that we're not going to win every game. But we still should be winning more than we're losing because we've got a very talented side.
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