The beginning of the end?
Australia lost a Test match they could not have lost, prompting the question - Is this the beginning of the end of the world's number one team (or maybe even the middle portion of the end, after the 0-2 defeat against India)
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
Australia lost a Test match they could not have lost, prompting the question - Is this the beginning of the end of the world's number one team (or maybe even the middle portion of the end, after the 0-2 defeat against India)? asks Suresh Menon in his column on ESPNStar.
The signs of Australia's decline have been around for a while now. Perhaps ever since India toured there last. Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne were bound to be missed, but the world champions were carried forward by the sheer momentum of their victories in the past. Over a longer period, the weaknesses become more obvious, the gaps more exaggerated. This is certainly a team in decline, and captains who seem totally in control when things are going right, suddenly appear indecisive and bereft of ideas when things go wrong. You can see this with Ricky Ponting, now beginning to look more like George W Bush than ever.
Also on ESPNStar, Arvind Iyengar looks at the parallels between the historic run-chases in Chennai and Perth.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo