AT the end of an truly sensational day's cricket, and when you see cricket like that it doesn't matter who the teams are, Adam Gilchrist said something very interesting; something that highlights the Australian way of thinking and tells us why they are one of the great sides in the history of the game.
"Everytime we have lost in the last eighteen months, it has taken a great innings to do it," he said and he could easily have extrapolated it to another few months to include their away series against the West Indies. That is the absolute truth for except for the last Test against India at Chennai, where Sachin Tendulkar produced a wonderful hundred but the game was really won by Harbhajan Singh, it has required one of the great innings of our times to subdue them.
Brian Lara's 153 not out at Barbados was an absolute marvel because at every point in that innings it was clear that Australia were one ball away from winning. When the contacts in Lara's mind are well connected, he is without doubt the most breathtaking player in the game today. Then at Kolkata, in one of the great Test matches of all time, V. V. S. Laxman played an innings that was astonishing in its simplicity and quite unbelievable in its expanse. He didn't play too many difficult shots, like Lara tends to do. He merely brought an amazing efficiency to normal cricket shots. The title of great sits very comfortably on those two innings.
Now there is a third and without being disrespectful, it has come from an extremely unlikely source. For a major part of his career, Mark Butcher has looked, and played, like a very average cricketer. There was the odd century and one dogged thirty that won England a low scoring Test match, but that was all. Butcher did not look a Test batsman but happily for him, nobody will ever say that again. His 173 not out was a sensational innings because it was played with the kind of freedom that people do not associate England with. They have always been battlers and their happy batting moments in recent times have been back-to-the-wall efforts. Aggression has been a fleeting companion, but Butcher injected that into what was an essentially dour, even boring, batting side.
Indeed, aggression is the one element that stands out in each of those three innings. That, to my mind, is also the only way to win matches against powerful, disciplined teams. And disciplined here is as crucial an element as powerful. In fact it is my hypothesis that being disciplined is a necessary and sufficient condition for becoming powerful. The other great team of our times, Clive Lloyd's West Indies of the late seventies and early eighties, were equally disciplined and on the rare occasions that they lost, it required bold, attacking cricket from the opposition as well. (Michael Holding might disagree and point out that the umpiring in New Zealand in 1986 might have to come in as a necessary element!)
The essential elements to great teams therefore are disciplined bowling, disciplined fielding and aggressive batting. And you can see that this is exactly what Dave Whatmore is trying to do with far more limited resources in Sri Lanka. In fact, look at this Australian side in England. The three bowlers who have achieved success have all bowled a very disciplined line and length. Only Brett Lee has been profligate and he has had an extremely poor series so far. They have fielded wonderfully and each of the hundreds scored has come at a fair pace. In fact, the defining batting moments in the series have all been characterised by aggression. It would seem therefore that the way to counter very good sides is to imbibe these three factors. Look now at how India played the first Test at Galle against Sri Lanka. The batting was defensive, extraordinarily so, the fielding wasn't great and the bowling showed very few shades of discipline. We got the order mixed up a bit. The defensive batting was understandable, even if the extent of defence wasn't. Teams with their back to the wall often feel the need to embrace safety first programmes and that is the most acceptable dilution to the winning route. But no team can win unless they catch everything that comes their way and any team that gives the opposition batsmen room to play shots is bound to be chasing a big score. This has crucial implications for the tour of South Africa which will be played on firm, true surfaces. South Africa catch and field as well as Australia do and while the bowling might lack a little flair, it is just as disciplined. And the only reason they are not being bracketed with Australia at the moment is that their batting is dogged rather than aggressive. The way out for the opposition therefore is to create scoring opportunities with the bat and limit them with the ball. That is why the likes of Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar will be the key players. Commitment to defence and to blunting the attack alone will be of little good if three hours at the crease produce 30 runs.
That is why I cannot wait to see what Tendulkar does in South Africa. Will he adopt the cautious innings building route that he has for the past few Test matches? Or will he be the free scoring aggressive batsman that he has been for a major part of his career? I desperately hope it is the second of those two for that is the only way India can counter South Africa on the tracks offered there.
To my mind, it is his attitude that will determine how far India go. That big toe will come in handy.
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