India do Australia a favour
India's insipid performance made Australia look better than they are, Greg Baum writes in the Sydney Morning Herald , but the confidence the 4-0 series win will give Australia is invaluable.
Dustin Silgardo
25-Feb-2013
India's insipid performance made Australia look better than they are, Greg Baum writes in the Sydney Morning Herald, but the confidence the 4-0 series win will give Australia is invaluable.
One thing leads to another. On the second evening in Melbourne, the inspired Siddle sheared through Tendulkar. From that moment, Australia's seamers became a pack of dogs with a bone. Bowling coach Craig McDermott emerged as an unsung hero. When Lyon finally got his chance, he seized it by the seam. At last, Australia has stopped trying to find the next Shane Warne, figuring that if they finds one half as good, they will be happy.
In the Courier Mail, Malcolm Conn says there will be tougher challenges to come for Australia, and there are still questions about who will replace the senior batsmen when they retire, but the resurgent bowling attack and the emergence of David Warner as a Test star bode well for Australian cricket.
Some impressive talent has burst forth in the process under the fresh leadership of Clarke. David Warner wasn't even a NSW Sheffield Shield regular last summer when Australia lost the Ashes; now he shapes as one of Test cricket's greatest drawcards since Shane Warne. And there is great excitement about having injured pace pair James Pattinson and Pat Cummins on the park together for an extended run with the new ball.
Dustin Silgardo is a former sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo