Runs, wickets and race calls: The secrets behind Australia’s 2003 World Cup success
Their champion spinner might have been a late scratching but the Aussies defied the odds to turn cricket’s biggest tournament into a one-horse race. This is the story behind Australia’s remarkable 2003 World Cup victory.
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On the plane to South Africa for the 2003 World Cup Jimmy Maher was sitting with back-up spinner Brad Hogg and fringe all-rounders Andrew Symonds and Ian Harvey.
“You know what boys?” he said to them. “All being equal we’re not going to be playing much cricket over here. This is going to be a Contiki Tour for us. We’re going to be watching the lions and elephants and making sure the beers are cold.”
And then, all hell broke loose with Shane Warne sent home after failing a drug test.
“The day before the first game against Pakistan we got a message to meet in (captain) Ricky Ponting’s hotel room and he and (coach) John Buchanan told us about Warney.
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“The enormity of the news just hit us. We’d lost our best player, the one the whole world was petrified of. Buck and Punter told us to open up and get everything off our chests.
“There was a lot going on in that room: feelings for Warney, anger, fear … and after everyone had had a say Punter said, ‘okay, that’s it. We’re not going to mention it again. Let’s get on with winning this thing’.
“The next day all four of us are in the side. I’ve said to them. ‘Geez, that Contiki Tour didn’t last long did it?”
Symonds, whose form had been poor in the lead-up to the tournament had been a controversial selection to even make the touring squad.
He went out against Pakistan and hit a career-high 143 not out off 125 balls in a player-of-the-match performance.
“He was incredible,” Maher said. “I think I was happier for him than he was. I don’t know for sure but I think Punter really went into bat for him in the selection room and that innings summed ‘Roy’ up. The team was under the pump and Roy wanted to pay Punter back for showing faith in him.”
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Symonds, who rates winning that World Cup the highlight of his career, played nine matches and finished with 326 runs from five innings (three not out) and a tournament-high average of 163.
Ably filling in for Warne, Hogg took 13 wickets at 24.76 in 10 matches and Harvey, in six games, contributed 66 runs from five innings and took 8 wickets at an average of 19.62.
Their fellow “Contiki tourist” Maher played three matches but his major contribution was off the field.
“Punter and Gilly (vice-captain Gilchrist) said they wanted things to be kept lighthearted. After the Warney thing they didn’t want us getting all tied up in knots.
“That was fine by me. Roy and Andy Bichel and me brought a Queensland flavour to things. There was a lot of fun, plenty of laughs and pranks to take the pressure off.”
One of Maher’s party tricks was to take over the PA system on flights and welcome passengers aboard using various accents and providing interesting “facts” about their destination.
Another was his infamous phantom race calls.
“I put together a field with every player having a name, bloodlines and form then I’d tape the race using a journalist’s tape recorder, set odds, run a book and play it back live.
“The top weight was always Darren Lehmann. He was Shrek, from Jabba the Hut out of Yoda. Warney wasn’t there but he still got a run. He was Wipe Your A*** With 50s from Spend A Lot out of Buckets. It was all prerecorded so if there was a plunge on the winner I was stuffed.”
Relaxed, close-knit and improving with every match, the Australians went through the tournament undefeated before blitzing India in the final.
Batting first, Ponting scored 140 not out in Australia’s massive total of 2/359. In reply India were all out for 234 in 39.2 overs.
“I’ve never seen a team gel like that in my life,” says Maher. “People say to me, ‘how would you like to have been earning the money the players earn these days?’ There’s not enough money in the world to pay for the fun I had on that tour. It was crazy.”
Now 45, Maher is still very much actively involved with cricket as the driving force behind the Bulls Masters, an organisation which takes former Queensland legends to regional and country areas, plays against local teams and raises money for clubs, junior development and charity.
“When I was a kid growing up in Innisfail I used to listen to the Shield matches on the wireless and watch the last session on the ABC,” he said. “When the Queensland players came to Cairns to play XXXX Cup matches I’d always go. It meant so much to me to see them in the flesh.
“That doesn’t happen now because the players have so many commitments around the world, so a few years back I said to Michael Kasprowicz, ‘we’ve got to do something about this’ and that’s how it started.
“We go to the regions, play a game of Twenty-20, have a dinner, visit schools and hospitals and every cent goes back to local cricket or charity. Times are tough, every cent helps.”
And how is his form?
“I reckon Twenty-20 is cricket for old people,” he says. “I couldn’t last more than twenty overs. I can still hit them okay, it’s the running between wickets that’s got me buggered.”
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