Shreyas S. Bhide
reports that Australia and New Zealand are playing the first test match at Gabba. For the Kiwis, the Aussies have traditionally been mighty rivals. But despite their setbacks, New Zealand seem to have sharpened their thoughts, if not their bats.
This time though, Daniel Vettori’s comment at the pre-match press conference, that the Australian skipper Ricky Ponting was always spoiling for a fight and that the Aussies never take a defeat in good taste points out that the Black Caps are all ready to take on their Trans-Tasmanian rivals more courageously.
Probably, New Zealand seems to be taking a leaf out of the Indian camp. The traveling Indian team Down Under in the Dec’07-Jan’08 tour gave the Aussies a tough time on and off the field too. The mighty Aussies, known to abuse and bad-mouth their competitors to disturb their mental balance, got a taste of their own medicine, when players like Anil Kumble and MS Dhoni led test and ODI teams(respectively) stood up to the Aussie aggression face-to-face. This of course was followed by the recent Australia’s tour of India which was played bitterly on and off the field. New Zealand seem to have realized through this experience that the Aussies do get disturbed when they face an opposition which was as aggressive in response as them.
Circa 1999 – the World cup in England signified the rise of Australia to the top in the cricketing circles. The rise of the Australian team had started much earlier, but their World Cup victory against Pakistan stamped their authority on the game as the world’s top team. The success story was a combination of many factors. Firstly, Australia had all their best players going through a purple patch at almost the same – Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist have been largely credited with Australia’s rise and long stay at the top. Add to this an eclectic mix of new and emerging players such as Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Brett Lee, Andrew Symonds and the Aussies looked almost invulnerable in world cricket. Secondly, the kind of cricket that teams world over play nowadays (aggressive, quick and flexible) was invented by the Aussies almost a decade back. At that time, most teams looked uncomfortable and orthodox facing this kind of an unusual brand of cricket. Finally, of course the fact that the Aussies were masters at playing mind games on and off the field. They would pamper the media when they traveled and their media thrashed the opposition even before a bowl was bowled during any home series’ down under. They would release a barrage of choicest expletives if a player from the opposing ranks would get stuck in to them. They would manipulate decisions thanks to excessive and intimidating appealing. All this made the mighty Aussies a force to reckon with in world cricket.
The first time a team upset the applecart of the mighty Aussies was when they toured India in 2001 and left battered and bruised after India won the test series 2-1 staging a terrific comeback, which would go down the annals of world cricket history as one of the best ever. Later India traveled down under as underdogs in 2004 and came back leveling the test series 1-1. In both these cases, India managed to counter the Aussies only on field, purely in cricketing terms. The exclusivity of the aggressive brand of cricket still lay with the Baggy Greens.
The first team to stand up to the aggression of the Aussies was South Africa. India soon followed suit. And what happened in India’s 2007-08 tour down under is history. The mighty Aussies realized that aggression and on-field mind games were no more their monopoly. The Indians were not ready to take anything lying down. Australia, led by Ponting, first ran into Harbhajan Singh, then Ishant Sharma, then Gautam Gambhir and then on and on till the recent home series. The world stood up and took notice of two important things – 1. India is on its way to the top spot 2. The Aussies could be beaten using their own store of armory.
Daniel Vettori’s latest comments accomplish two goals. It gives the Black Caps the confidence to take on their rivals more aggressively and it further dents Aussie confidence, who are already wounded thanks to their ‘India’ experience over the past one year or so.
Further this statement by Vettori more or less summarizes the situation the Australian team is in right now: “Ponting led his team very aggressively and probably hasn’t often had to face an opposition team that’s been just as aggressive in response. If a team was going to play the game hard and stand up to everything the Aussies hurled at them, there was going to be trouble.”
