Australia’s Bench-strength to the fore



By: Venkatachalam. A. Krishnan
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They could choose a 15 without the Waugh twins, Stuart McGill, Justin Langer, Greg Blewett or Martin Love who can walk into any other team.



The Australian Selectors were thought to have blundered especially in not choosing Steve Waugh, the man with nerves of steel, for their campaign in South Africa.



Before the team went into their crucial first match against the dangerously unpredictable Pakistanis, they had more problems on and off the Cricket-field.



First Shane Watson, the first-choice all-rounder in the squad reported unfit and had to be replaced with Ian Harvey at the last minute.



Darren Lehmann had to sit out of the opening-match serving suspension for a racial-slur. This reduced their number to 14.



The ever-dependable Michael Bevan had still not recovered from an injury and so was not available for selection, thereby reducing the number to 13.



And the biggest setback came on match eve as Shane Warne, rated by Wisden as the greatest-ever bowler, tested positive for a banned diuretic (A masking-agent used to hide the presence of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes) and had to withdraw from the squad.



And this reduced the number of players available for selection for the important match to just 12.



The Australians were thought to be in deep trouble in terms of skills as well as morale. There was no way a team could perform at the highest stage with all these problems. Their middle-order, with very little experience, looked extremely shaky and their bowling department looked considerably weaker without Warne.



The Pakistanis felt that the match was there for the taking and were all fired up. They were determined to make amends for their loss to the Aussies in the finals of the last edition of the competition.

And they seemed to be well and truly on their way to achieving it when Aussies were tottering at 4 down for 86 with just 15.5 overs into the match. The Aussie lower middle-order and the tail never seemed to have any chance against the formidable Pakistani bowling line-up consisting of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akthar.



If Australia had to come out of the rut, somebody had to play out of their skin. And they surely could have done with a Michael Bevan or Steve Waugh. The Aussie-fan contingent had gone into mourning.



In walked Andrew Symonds at number 6. He has always been seen as a bloke with loads of natural-talent but he never converted it into actual performance. It was probably the greatest ever opportunity for him to vindicate himself.



His innings over the next two hours and a half, would go down in history as one of the best ever in a cup game. He drove the ball with gay abandon, cut with silken grace, lofted with ferocious power and brutally walloped the ball to all areas of the ground.



Andrew Symonds had arrived and the Pakistanis had no answer to his blitzkrieg. The result was a mammoth total of 310 to be overhauled in 49 overs. The game had completely turned on its head.



Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie showed their class while Brett Lee was breathing fire consistently clocking 96 miles per hour. He had a point to prove to his rival Akthar and prove he did with a few deliveries clocking 98+ mph.



But then three good bowlers won’t make your day and 20 overs had still to be accounted for. And all they had were Harvey, Hogg and Symonds.

Again, the Australian bench-strength strength was in display as both Harvey and Hogg proved that they belong here at the big stage. They shared 7 wickets between them and ensured that Australia did not miss any of the big names.



Harvey was a revelation mixing his pace extremely well and always keeping the batsmen guessing. Hogg bowled a great line and was unlucky not to have picked up a few more wickets.



The Aussies have proved why they are the world-champions and the favorites to defend their title. They are mentally many levels above the others and every single individual believes that they are superior.



Now, with the kind of bench-strength they have, the Australian selectors have a problem of plenty and it will be interesting to see who gets to play and who doesn’t against India when Bevan and Lehmann will be available for selection.



Any guesses?!

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