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The Surfer

Tin-foil Australia

Ever since the India tour this October, Australia's fear factor has vapourised

Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Ever since the India tour this October, Australia's fear factor has vapourised. Their cast-iron armour now looks like it is made of tin foil. They are in desperate strife: in match-terms, it is like they have been asked to follow on and are about 500 behind, writes Sharda Ugra in her blog Free Hit.
... Australia have been beaten in two consecutive tests by South Africa that they should have won. To lose tight games can be an outcome of form, which is what happened in the 2005 Ashes. To lose games after setting them up reflect a certain lethargy and flabbiness in selection, in thought, in training (who was it that said that teams begin dropping catches only when they don’t practice taking them enough?). But before anything else, it reflects a paucity of the quality needed to decisively seize games. Whenever the game needed changing, Australia looked around its dressing room and found that its game-changers were gone. And South Africa were ready, willing, composed and able.

Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo