Australians experience no lack of motivation

What motivates and drives a team for which almost every victory has come to resemble a cakewalk?

"To be the best we can. To keep trying to improve," is the thinking, says Australian skipper Steve Waugh, at the core of the record-breaking Australian Test team's current approach.

"That's why we play cricket," he added.

"We just really being enjoy out there and playing Test match cricket. To win fourteen in a row in a great thing."

The record books now show that they have produced easily the greatest winning run of all time. Paradoxically, they find themselves in a potentially unhappy position as a result. The size of their string of victories and ease of those triumphs is beginning to make it seem that there must come at a point at which they will begin to lose the pleasure that comes from crushing their opponents so emphatically and so consistently.

"Perhaps the West Indies batting at the moment is not what it should be. But we've got a good attack and we're taking our catches," said Waugh, denying that his team's current 'battle' against West Indies has long since lost its interest.

It now requires a journey in those same record books all the way back to early October 1999 to find the last time that Australia failed to win a Test. And many would even argue that the draw that came in that particular Test - against Sri Lanka in Colombo - was more the result of a succession of untimely rain interruptions than of Australia failing to play well.

In the intervening period, a string of devastating victories have been produced against Zimbabwe, Pakistan, India, New Zealand and now the hapless West Indians. Powerful victories all of them, recorded by a team whose consistency and skill is helping to highlight a massive gulf between contemporary Test cricket's best and worst nations.

Waugh also revealed that the sense of unity that exists between players across Australia, and the overall strength of the current Australian structure, is also a key to assisting the team to continue to perform well.

"We enjoy (seeing) guys like Andy Bichel take five wickets. He's worked so hard to get into the side over three or four years; had a lot of injuries. Things like that keep the guys really excited about playing. We're very happy to see him get wickets," he remarked.

"The players in the team appreciate all the efforts that these guys have put in over the years. Carrying drinks, being on tours, but not playing. When they finally get the chance, if you don't give one hundred per cent, then you're not showing these guys the respect for all the times that they've showed you respect over the years," was his frank assessment.

It's all makes for a very simple philosophy really. Interesting, then, that it is also proving such an irresistible one.