The Aussie Debacle-Who Is To Blame?

As most of us think it to be, it is neither the retirement of most of the cricketing greats all of a sudden from the Australian squad. For, this was more the less expected. Its just obvious that the so called greats of the likes of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne would be retiring sooner or later. Or, did the Australian selectors be of the idea that these players would be serving Australian cricket forever or what? Australia did manage to win tests comfortably even without the services of these two great stalwarts, for as all of us are aware of, Shane Warne was banned from international cricket for a year and Glenn McGrath also lost a year inbetween, when injury forced him out.

For the case, Ricky Ponting was not available for the Border-Gavaskar trophy in 2004 that was held in India and Adam Gilchrist had to take the initiative. They did well to furnish Steve Waugh's dream of winning a test series in India by winning the series 2-1. And the fact was also that Shane Warne was no threat for the Indian batsmen. With the presence of Shane Warne who was in sublime form and Glenn McGrath as well, Australia lost the Ashes in 2005, after handing England a 239 run defeat in the first test, which had many think of England's whitewash, which didn't happen. It is just not fair for anyone to put the blame on the former players' retirement or even the lack of form of the present lot.

For, all of the greats who retired did serve Australian cricket to the maximum extent and their retirement was somewhere nearby. Who is to blame, if the Australian Cricket Board didn't take the matter seriously, if at all they were interested in Australia dominating the cricketing world? All the players who retired were in their late 30s. Didn't the Aussies have any considerable bench strength? Blame it on the IPL and the ICL, which made some players to dance to their tunes by sprinkling money. The category includes Jason Gillespie in particular. And where have the guys like Andy Bichel, Shaun March and others gone?

For, it is tough to find as to when did someone like Michael Beaven, Jason Gillespie, Andy Bichel- (who have played immense part in most of the Aussie wins) and likes play their last game for Australia before they one fine day called it a day? Did the selectors expect the aforementioned players to wait indefinitely for their turn to come so that they can represent the national side? Lets go to the situation when Steve Waugh was handed over the captaincy and all of a sudden players like Mark Waugh, Tom Moody, Damien Fleming vanish and, fellow players like Hayden, Gilchrist, Martyn, Lee etc being in their mid 20s and had lack of experience.

How come Steve Waugh was able to build that Australian team to a world dominating side and now Ricky Ponting blames the retirement of fellow players for his team's debacle? With all these facts in mind, one can come to the conclusion that all Ponting was found doing these days was to enjoy the good and hard work done by his predecessor-Steve Waugh and is now found to panic when things have gone beyond his control.