Eight years ago, in late December I was seated high up in the press box of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) next to an Afrikaans colleague as we sought the words to describe the historic achievement of a South African cricket team winning a Test series in Australia.
At one point the two of us, along with a dozen Australian journos, many of whom had not seen an Australian team lose a Test series on home soil, bore witness to some of the South African side’s celebrations. Graeme Smith emerged from the MCG dressing room with something filthy filling his glass and chased seagulls off the pitch. Paul Harris broke numerous local laws by lighting up a cigar and then walking out to the middle of that venerable venue. Songs were sung, photos were taken and the likes of Morne Morkel, Makhaya Ntini and Hashim Amla, who’d all fielded on the boundary during that Test match, got to go back to the areas of the ground - long ago empty of course - and scream back some of what they’d had to cop from what is always a rowdy crowd.
I did not believe South Africa would win that series. Sure that team, captained brilliantly by Smith, was an outstanding one that earlier in the year had won in England. But Australia - with Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee, Mat Hayden and Michael Clarke - on home soil still looked a potent outfit. And yet SA would win that series, making 414 in Perth in the first Test and then producing a miracle in Melbourne, to turn around the Test match and then win it and with it make history as the first side to win in Australia for 16 years.
I’m a bit more optimistic about this year’s side chances, even though they’re not as strong a team as the one Smith led in 2008.
It’s a cautious optimism obviously, for Australia in Australia remains a dangerous beast, with a lot of pride and in the case of many players, a point to prove. But the reason for my optimism is that they are nowhere near the machine they were 15 years ago.
How many of the current Australian team would get into the one that thrashed South Africa in three Tests in 2001? Maybe Dave Warner would carry drinks, but as for the rest, it’s unlikely they’d get near that team.
And it is Australia’s problems in terms of personnel that has me thinking South Africa has a fantastic chance at winning a third series in a row Down Under. And the moral of all the players would not have been helped by revelations emerging from Michael Clarke’s book, which has created an unnecessary distraction for Steve Smith ahead of the first Test in a week’s time.
The Star