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The year of Steven Smith, unsettled batting, and immense loss

Late in the evening on January 5 last year, Michael Clarke walked with Darren Lehmann to the centre of the SCG, sharing a moment as captain and coach in the afterglow of a 5-0 destruction of England. Late in the evening on November 27, Clarke was out there again, touching the turf where Phillip Hughes was felled, and weeping for his fallen friend.

These scenes captured the vast range of emotions traversed by Australia's cricketers in 2014: seldom has a cricket ground witnessed a happier dressing room than the one Australia's players sprayed with beer and champagne following the completion of an Ashes whitewash in the first week of this year. Never has it glimpsed a more distraught one than when the national team assembled to wrestle with the death of Hughes, 11 months later.

So it was that Australia's cricketers felt the giddiest of highs and the most inconsolable of lows during the past 12 months. They scaled heights not enjoyed down under since 2007, yet they also found themselves grappling with a sense of loss beyond anything as trivial as a dropped catch or a broken wicket.

Australia scaled heights not enjoyed down under since 2007 © Getty Images

Hughes was not part of the team that, in the words of the vice-captain Brad Haddin, "destroyed an era of English cricket". He was in the background as first reserve, biding his time after losing his place in England the previous year. He thus had a ringside seat as Clarke, Mitchell Johnson, David Warner, Ryan Harris and Steven Smith embossed their credentials as Ashes winners by rolling South Africa in February and March.

For a team exhausted mentally, if not physically, by the pressures of regaining the urn, this was a major triumph, made all the more admirable for the fact that South Africa, having been blown away by Johnson on a capricious Centurion Park pitch, responded with a knockout blow of their own in Port Elizabeth. Thanks to Clarke's courage and Warner's careening twin hundreds, Australia made all the running in Cape Town, but they needed all their reserves of energy and, it must be said, verbal venom, to batter their way through a home side as well versed at scrounging draws as they had been at accumulating victories - Australia inflicted South Africa's first home defeat since their predecessors under Ricky Ponting did the trick in 2009.

That tour was followed by disappointments. A tired and spaced-out squad staggered through the World T20 in Bangladesh, notably coming off second best in a duel of bats and big-noting against West Indies. The selectors reasoned afterwards that the rigours of the preceding few months had taken a toll greater than anyone had expected.

To that end, the team's longest break in seven years was not only welcome but necessary, affording time to take stock, refresh and re-focus on what lay ahead. First up was a limited-overs triangular series in Zimbabwe, an assignment that tripped up Clarke and his team a little more rudely than they might have anticipated. Clarke's hamstring failed him on arrival, and a hasty return to play backfired in the midst of a chastening loss to the modest talents of the hosts.

The grief over Phillip Hughes' death tested the resolve of all the players just days before the India series began © Getty Images

The physical infirmity of Clarke would grow into the most troubling theme of the year; the flesh had become weak where the spirit remained willing. Recurrences in the UAE and then against South Africa at home left Rod Marsh's selection panel looking for a new leader sooner than they had expected to be doing, and the bold call to go with Smith at home against India was one of its most forward-thinking moves since the now-retired John Inverarity took over from Andrew Hilditch and company.

Smith's growth as a batsman had been maintained against Pakistan in the UAE, when a sturdy hundred at No. 4 in a victorious ODI series was followed by an innings of class and intelligence in the Tests. But aside from that and some more brazen batting by Warner, that was essentially that - Clarke's men were beaten and near enough to bullied around Dubai and Abu Dhabi by Misbah-ul-Haq's team, in a result that left it sensible to conclude that the travails of the 2013 India tour had more to do with an aversion to foreign conditions than anything homework-related. Australia can have no genuine claims to the title of the world's best team until this blind spot is addressed.

Hughes was narrowly omitted from that Test team, first for Alex Doolan and then for Glenn Maxwell, who illustrated that it is no easy thing to evolve in the manner of Warner and Smith, by showing little inclination to shape his game to the prevailing circumstances. Others emerged more steadily - Mitchell Marsh was added to the team in the UAE and acquitted himself as decently as fragile hamstrings would allow him, while at home against India, Josh Hazlewood showed the qualities that should make him a reliable foil for the likes of James Pattinson, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc in years to come. Nathan Lyon also broke through the barrier of fourth-innings performance that had impeded him ever since his debut in 2011 - the last-day haul against India at Adelaide Oval was richly deserved by a bowler who has fought gamely for the art of classical fingerspin.

When Lyon took the final wicket of the match, a quicksilver stumping by Brad Haddin, the team converged on a "408" emblazoned upon the Adelaide outfield. This was no sponsor's logo but the Test cap numeral of Hughes, who looked providentially down on the team as they fought and won the battle to channel their grief, anger and shock into a fine performance at a ground that ostensibly favoured India's strengths. Clarke's hundred despite back and hamstring problems may yet prove a fitting valediction for his Test captaincy tenure, and Warner's twin efforts surpassed those in Cape Town for emotional fortitude if not technical and tactical mastery. Australian cricket will never be the same after 2014, but there had been growth among the grief.

Australia managed to infiltrate the Cape Town fortress with a last-gasp win to take the series © Getty Images

High point
In cricket terms, Cape Town was the highest peak scaled by an Australian team since Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath retired in 2007. South Africa had been the world's best team in the intervening period, but the eclipse of Graeme Smith's career coincided with a rare peak for Johnson, and the emergence of Warner and Smith as legitimate successors to Clarke as free-spirited and adaptable batsmen. Clarke admitted to "crossing the line" when goading Dale Steyn on the final evening, and months later South Africa's spearhead had not forgotten it. But Clarke will say the end justified the means - a stirring victory under the gaze of Table Mountain, and no small measure of revenge for being razed for 47 on this very same ground three years before.

Low point
It may seem hopelessly unimportant following Hughes' passing, but a 2-0 defeat at the hands of a Pakistan side shorn of Saeed Ajmal was hardly the way to return to Test cricket following the jaunt through South Africa. Claims about the importance of the toss are given perspective by the fact that in India in 2013 all four spins of the coin were won by Australia, leaving most to agree that Australia will remain an inherently flawed team until the right tempo can be found for success in subcontinental climes. England prepared slow, low tracks in 2013 - after their troubles with Johnson and the example set by Pakistan, they will surely be even more so later this in 2015.

Doubts over Steven Smith's readiness for the captaincy were quelled instantly © Getty Images

New kid on the block
Steven Smith has been around for some years, but it was quite a leap to go from outside the initial Cricket Australia central contracts list in 2013-14 to Test captain in December. He has already shown himself to be a leader of merit but also independence - there was a grave ruthlessness about the declaration against India on the final day of the Boxing Day Test that was more Steve Waugh than Michael Clarke - and as a batsman Smith has ascended to heights no one imagined when he was typecast as a fidgety nicker by England's cricketers and journalists in 2010-11. It is left to the wise figure of Chris Rogers to speculate on where things go from here: "It's scary how good he could be."

What 2015 holds
A home World Cup does not come around very often, and the Australians have resolved to treat this as a proper tournament rather than the adjunct to the World Series Cup that it was regrettably mistaken for in 1992. Beyond that lies a tour of the West Indies, and the chance to retain the Ashes in England for the first time since 2001. Further transitions appear likely after that point, with the likes of Haddin, Rogers, Clarke, Watson and the indefatigable Ryan Harris all wondering how long they might go on for.