The other reason they lost: Ricky Ponting never planned for losing

Ricky Ponting’s Australia are, on paper, better placed after Perth. In a four-Test series, they have won Melbourne and Sydney. From here, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy cannot be lost.

When then do they already speak of “the end of the era?”

Memories in Cricket can be conveniently short, so if this era is Australia’s streak since losing the Ashes to England in the summer of 2005, it is obviously over. The statistician has said so. But a couple of losses after 16 Tests were just an interlude until Waugh gathered his men and went on to flaunt his team as perhaps the best in history.

It began in the West Indies in 1995, when Mark Taylor’s Australia, fortified by a double century by Waugh at Kingston at a time when Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh breathed dread into batsmen, won a series in the Caribbean after more than 20 years. West Indian supremacy was at an end, the baton had been passed.

The era is made of three men who led Australia: Taylor, Waugh, Ponting.

Taylor, the gum-chewing opener, who showed that narrow-eyed pursuit of victory could still keep you large hearted when he once declared Australia’s innings at Peshawar while himself on 334 — 334 was Don Bradman’s highest Test score.

The match was ultimately drawn, but Taylor’s controversial declaration “in the first innings” has kept the conversation going as we find ways to choose our favourite cricketers.

Then there was Waugh. He was so tough on the field, always plotting — and seen to be plotting “mental disintegration.” But then, he’d slip off to Kolkata and his good works. Even Sourav Ganguly’s proudly partisan fans could not bring themselves to be angry with Waugh when he accused the Prince of Kolkata to be guilty of “match fixing” by “trying to influence the groundsmen in India.”

... contd.