Sport | Golf
The disintegration of Aussie cricketers
Watching the disintegration of a world-beating team is like chronicling the fall of the walls of Jericho. First the initial cracks are exposed and then the major structural flaws become apparent.
- By David McMahon, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:38 January 8, 2009
Watching the disintegration of a world-beating team is like chronicling the fall of the walls of Jericho. First the initial cracks are exposed and then the major structural flaws become apparent.
In the dethroning of the Australian Test cricket team, there have been occasional reminders of mortality. However, there was a common thread to each series that Australia lost in the past 10 years - each was inflicted on foreign soil, by Sri Lanka in 1999, by India in 2001, by England in The Great Ashes Upset of 2005 and by India again in 2008.
But in truth I have never seen two turnarounds more dramatic than the Kolkata Test of 2001 and the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne last month. Each time it was the world champions who were put to the sword.
In the current series against South Africa, Australia looked like squaring the series in Melbourne. The hosts had rallied to score 394 in the first innings and South Africa were in dire straits at 198 for 7.
Then came the heroic effort by Jean-Paul Duminy, the man who not only constructed Australia's coffin but even drove home the nails to seal it irrevocably shut.
Not only did he play a major role in South Africa's stirring run chase in the previous Test, he totally destroyed the myth of Australian invincibility with his 166 in Melbourne.
Make no mistake about it. This young man charted the course of history. With the last three wickets, he added 261 to take his side to 459.
That 261 assumes monumental proportions when you consider the following: Australia capitulated in less than a total day's play, for 247. With the tailenders, Duminy had scored 14 runs more than the side that was for so long the world's best.
David McMahon is a freelance writer based in Australia
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