The last test

Tour groups from as far afield as St Lucia and Spain will be travelling to Australia some time over the Christmas and New Year period. They won't be going just for the sunshine. The last time a Test series generated similar interest from cricket followers was in 1994 when Mark Taylor led Australia through what had become an impenetrable barrier - the defences of the Caribbean. Supporters of the game, not just of each team, travelled to the West Indies to see whether the crown of world supremacy was really going to change hands. It did, amid some of the most enthralling cricket seen in a decade.

Two years earlier the crown that had been earned as far back as 1979 had slipped badly in Australia when Richie Richardson's team came within a single run of losing the series and their unofficial title of world Test champions. The West Indies squared the series, winning the fourth Test by a single run. Australia's last pair of Tim May and Craig McDermott scored 40 of the 42 required before Courtney Walsh had McDermott caught behind. The balance of world power had shifted, nonetheless, and two years later Australia were crowned the new unofficial world champions, albeit by a majority verdict rather than an unanimous one.

Now there is an official Test Championship and the doubters can be silenced by a finger pointed at the relevant chapter of the Wisden Almanack. If there is a doubt, it may concern Australia's last remaining, uncrossed hurdle, at least in the modern era - victory in India. Not since the 1969-70 season has that happened and, with the greatest will in the world, that triumph cannot be said to reflect on the current generation. South Africa managed to win in India in March 2000 despite being captained by a man who apparently didn't want them to.

That is why they will be the best team in the world should they prevail in December and January, and then again in South Africa in the return series in February and March. Should Steve Waugh's team triumph, they will undoubtedly retain the right to be called the best, though they will always be forced to tolerate the but-they-couldn't-win-in-India taunts.

There are obvious differences between the teams that contested the last series in Australia in 1997-98; the most glaring of these is the change of captains. While Steve Waugh has continued and expanded Mark Taylor's best assets, notably his coolness under pressure and his ability to build `spirit', Shaun Pollock has brought a freshness of approach and a hitherto largely unseen quality to the South African team - calmness.

Hansie Cronje, as an individual, may have been able to cope with pressure situations and adversity but the effect he had on his team-mates in such situations was inevitably detrimental to their performance. He had a brooding intensity of emotion that burned his colleagues with its heat; senior players resented it and juniors were intimidated.

Pollock, on the other hand, wears his heart on his sleeve and leaves nothing on his chest. He yells at misfields and dropped catches but his team know that the baggage is carried for no more than a couple of minutes on the field, and never off it.

It may be trite to suggest that Pollock's Christian convictions shape him as a cricket player because few men think of their God in the heat of sporting battle, but his religion certainly gives him a balanced perspective on his life and his job. Cricket is a game, he will tell you. If you lose, the sun will come up again.

If individual brilliance rather than team efficiency is the key to undermining Australia, then common belief would have it that South Africa will fail. Stunning one-man attacks from Harbhajan Singh, VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar and Mark Butcher have earned Test victories against the Aussies while the West Indies have owed several successes to brutal assaults by Brian Lara and Curtly Ambrose.

`A team with no stars' was how South Africa were described for most of the 1990s, although the truth was actually more subtle: `A team in which no one played like a star' would have been more accurate. Individual brilliance and flair were treated with suspicion in the years after their return from isolation. It was the Afrikaners' way, instigated by Kepler Wessels and promulgated by Cronje.

Now, however, there are Herschelle Gibbs and Lance Klusener, both capable of winning matches at blistering speed. There is Jacques Kallis, who can be as explosive as either of them, but prefers to make his centuries over five hours rather than three. There is not only awesome depth in the batting line-up but also an enviable mix of styles - steered at the top by Gary Kirsten's limitless patience and anchored at the bottom by the trio of Pollock, Mark Boucher and Nicky Boje, all with first-class averages in excess of 30.

Things aren't quite as cushy in the fast-bowling department. With Allan Donald struggling to even make the touring party and Mfuneko Ngam's fifth stress fracture in as many years ruling him out, the only bowler of consistently hostile pace could be Mornantau Hayward. Kallis can operate as a strike bowler when required, and effectively too, but his position at No. 3 then becomes untenable. Makhaya Ntini too can bowl fast but his natural position is - and always has been - as a back-up seamer.

Pollock may end up carrying a dual burden - that of tidy seamer and strike bowler - which would further lessen his active role as captain. And where Waugh has a bevy of experienced players to fall back on (Warne, Gilchrist, Ponting, McGrath and his brother Mark), Pollock has far fewer.

Kirsten tends to distance himself these days now that he is no longer a regular member of the close-catching cordon; personal combat and verbal exchanges are no more than childish irrelevancies to him. Daryll Cullinan has been a valuable contributor but, if selected, the cauldrons in Australia may diminish his insight. Mark Boucher, the deputy, is a constant thinker but his indifferent form in the last nine months is a distraction. Kallis's contributions can be revealing but he can occasionally be self-absorbed.

There have been occasions when Pollock's team has drifted at critical times, notably on the final day of the second Test against the West Indies earlier this year. WI needed just 200 to win and, when after a horrible collapse to 51 for 5, Carl Hooper and Ramnaresh Sarwan added 92 for the sixth wicket, South Africa began to drift and panic. Players were arguing and throwing the blame around. Pollock recognised it just in time and called his team together in a rugby-style scrum to lay down the law. Call it coincidence if you will, but the last five wickets tumbled quickly and South Africa claimed a series-controlling win.

Shane Warne once again looms large for the South Africans, though the great legspinner does not enjoy the same psychological advantage that he does over England. His infamous domination of Cullinan is the obvious exception but Warne has been dominated as often as he has been master and his record shows it. Overall against South Africa, Warne has taken 64 wickets in a dozen Tests at an average of 20.97. But 23 of those wickets have come in the two Sydney Tests at 10.30 apiece. That leaves him with a far more modest collection of 41 victims at 27 each in the remaining 10 tests. If you take out Cullinan's `freebie' wickets, the verdict must be that South African batsmen can cope with Warne. But they must rotate him for more singles than any other bowler, while sporadically attempting to hit over the top. If Warne is going to take five wickets, South Africa would prefer it was 5 for 120 than 5 for 60.

Glenn McGrath will be treated in quite the contrary manner. A fast bowler who routinely claims wickets when batsmen (Tendulkar and Lara apart) take liberties, McGrath will be respected and seen off because Jason Gillespie, the theory goes, can lose patience - and therefore discipline - while Brett Lee bowls a bad ball an over anyway.

There is little doubt that the bowlers will decide the series. South Africa's batting depth should test the physical stamina of Australia's four-man attack, while South Africa's deficiencies in genuine speed and match-winning spin could be their undoing.

The difference in the end could be plain desire. Waugh claims Australia have `wanted' to win more in the past whereas South Africa have choked at the critical moments. Those comments have hurt badly and it is not an exaggeration to say that Pollock and a handful of senior players have thought, on and off, about revenge for the last four years.

The last series ended at Adelaide amid high drama - and controversy - when Mark Waugh dislodged a bail in taking evasive action from a Pollock lifter and Australia hung on grimly for a draw to preserve their 1-0 series victory. The third umpire ruled it not out because he felt the shot had been completed - a decision many Indians would recognize as having come from the `hometown.'

Then followed the drama of the World Cup semi-final at Edgbaston when Allan Donald was run out off the penultimate ball to leave the match tied, which granted Australia a place in the final. There is enough motivation from those two results alone for the South African players to want to give blood for revenge. Can Australia really want it as much, after all their achievements? They claim they do but the Waughs are 36 now and their limbs may not be as willing as their hearts.

As the crowds from around the world gather in Australia, they can expect some of the hardest and most intense Test cricket. The series represents the first official World Championship showdown. Australia deservedly started with the title but this is the first time they will have defended it. If South Africa win, it will be the first time the trophy has changed hands. There will be times ahead when players from both countries will singularly fail to agree with Pollock - it will not feel like a game. It will feel a lot more important than that.