Obviously not the South African fans who promised a swift end to Australia dominance. But in general quite a number of people were surprised.
An Aussie mate of mine said, don’t listen to all the hype and buildup bullshit, all that’s going to happen is that SA are going to turn up and choke again. At the time I believed him.
But if you really look at the two teams, was it that hard for us to predict the outcome.
Australia were a team that had lost all their big names and the remaining ones were either out of form or in the middle of a form dip.
Hayden, Brett Lee, Hussey, all giants just about an year ago were all having a mid life crisis, or in the case of Hayden an end life crisis.
Husseys average was rocketing down faster than a straight man penis that saw a bit of gay porn.
Brett Lees mind was thinking about the guy rooting his wife.
Hayden had completely talked himself into being a robot of sorts that couldn’t score a run.
And Pontings captaincy had been exposed more and more as the year went on.
Then you had SA, under Graeme Smith, who were all balls and metal.
The only weak link may have been the openers slot where Mckenzie was iffy and Smith with a bad record against Australia.
But Smith was having a great year just as the rest of the team over the last 18 months. When you run through the SA team, you cant find a single player who had not made some impact through out that time period.
Steyn, Morkel, Ntini, Harris were a good line up, Sure I made fun of them but they were always going to be a big threat if they got it right. And then did.
This was also a new SA, a team with balls, a team with a bit between their ears and a big beating thing in their chest that ran at a steady pace, and a team that was adamant about shedding that ‘chockers’ tag that have haunted them for 16 years since coming back.
So you had a team on the way down, and another on the way up, at high speed.
Could there have been any other outcome ?
What’s your call for the return? 2-1 to the Saffers again, I say.
Return tour outcome : 3-0 to the Aussies 🙂
And SAfs didnt totally dominate Aussies, so they dont deserve to be #1 ……..
but may be SL cud, for they care is all abt records 🙂
The return will be interesting, as the Aussie pace bowling isn’t far off from being very strong.
The biggest issue for Aus recently has been the absence of Stuart Clark and his loss of form before injury. From the late 90s they always had an excellent Third bowler – Paul Reiffel, Damien Fleming, Andy Bichel, Kasprowicz – who could keep it tight and chip in with wickets. Currently they have a spearhead in Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle is developing well. The weakness is in the bowler who can keep it tight.
An attack of Johnson, Siddle and Clark will be far more challenging than Lee, Johnson and Siddle. The injury to Lee is helpful to Aus and I doubt if he will be able to get back in.
If they drop Hayden and Hussey improves his strike rate the batting will be stronger. Hussey has become like the old Thilan – when he gets a start he occupies the crease but only at a strike rate below 40 (previously it was close on 60s).
Sometimes you need to take a step back to get your bearings and them move forward again.
After the loss the selectors can now remove the dead wood (Lee, Hayden, Symonds) with justification. There are plenty of blokes keen for their spots and regardless of results the next twelve months will be an exciting and interesting time for Aussie cricket supporters.
I reckon the resurrection will begin when Ponting’s young team hold up the World T20 trophy later this year.