Dusk is a hard thing to accept, especially when the day has been glorious. But this is what the Australian cricket team has to come to terms with, it has no choice but to do so. All the mighty warriors have left, barring two. Steve Waugh’s world-beating team, its heritage is finally over. It’s time now to face up to the fact that defeats are now not only possible, but quite probable.

The team that Waugh built has consistently been rated as one of the three best cricket teams ever, along with Bradman’s 1948 Australia team, and Clive Lloyd’s 1984 West Indies. The Waugh twins, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee. Only Ponting and Lee remain, and of them, Ponting is now beleaguered by media and public.

Australia will return. If for no other reason than the simple fact that there is no better sporting nation in the world, given the size of its population. And also the spirit that Australian sportsmen seem to be born with. The most amazing quality of Waugh’s team was the apparent inability of any of its members to consider the fact that they could ever be defeated. And he rubbed that into the team’s DNA. On the way to England for an Ashes tour, the team stopped over at Gallipoli in Turkey, where thousands of Australian soldiers had died in a key First World War battle. There would have been no hope in hell for England in that series.

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