Australia's capitulation and Test cricket's new order
Gideon Haigh, in his blog in the Guardian , writes the nature of Australia's defeats in Perth and Melbourne indicates their decline in fortunes is more chronic than one can imagine.
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Gideon Haigh, in his blog in the Guardian, writes the nature of Australia's defeats in Perth and Melbourne indicates their decline in fortunes is more chronic than one can imagine.
At times in Melbourne, Ricky Ponting's men played as opponents used to play against them, with a kind of grim, orderly, persevering mediocrity. As JP Duminy, in his second Test, and Dale Steyn, with a single-figure Test average, added 180 on the third day, bowlers went through the motions to defensive fields, while catches were spilled, and overthrows and penalty runs were conceded almost without a care.
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It is not so much that a generation in Australian cricket is over, as that a new one has failed to begin, and that the players assumed to tide the team over in transition have fallen from their high estate.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo