How Allan Border put some mongrel into Aussie Ashes underdogs
The Australian men’s Test team heads to England as significant Ashes underdogs, but they need look no further than Allan Border and his 1989 side for their blueprint to success.
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When Allan Border hears Tim Paine’s side written off before the upcoming Ashes series all he can think is, “been there, done that”.
Border’s touring side in 1989 was the rankest of outsiders but they silenced the critics in the most emphatic way, winning the series 4-nil and regaining the Ashes for the first time in England since 1934.
“The papers over there were calling us the worst Australian side to ever tour,” Border recalled. “It wasn’t hard to motivate the boys after that. We just had to stick the articles from the London Sun and Mirror up on the dressing room wall.”
Winning that Ashes series remains the greatest moment in Border’s illustrious career and he is hopeful that Paine and his team will also give the English a run for their money.
“We had gone through a pretty rough trot just like the Aussies are now,” he said. “We’d won the World Cup in 1987 which was a big thing for us but that was one-day cricket. This was the Ashes, the real deal.
“Going over there as the underdogs and performing the way we did was something special. None of us will ever forget that feeling. You’d like to think the current team could get to experience it as well.
“I’ve got to say after the series against India I was thinking, ‘Gee, I wonder if our batting will be able to stand up to Jimmy Anderson with the ball swinging around in English conditions’ but I’m feeling a bit better about our chances now.
“Joe Burns and Kurtis Patterson looked really good when they came in against Sri Lanka and England aren’t going too well themselves. The West Indies really gave them a touch up.
“The English fancy their chances over there, but there’s nothing new about that. They always do. Hopefully they might underestimate us like they did in ’89.”
Looking at the scoresheets of the 1989 series it is hard to believe that anyone could have written off an Australian side which included the likes of Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh but as Border says, they were yet to make their mark internationally.
“They didn’t know about Mark Taylor, he’d only played the one series at home, and Steve Waugh was still making his way, he hadn’t scored a Test century yet,” Border said.
“The English weren’t worried about him but they’d only seen the old-version Steve Waugh, not the hard-nosed version. Taylor ended up scoring 800 runs in the series and Waugh wasn’t far behind.”
As for the others in the side, Border says they were too easily written off.
“David Boon’s form had dropped off a bit, the English thought Dean Jones was past it and Terry Alderman had been off the scene after going on a rebel tour. They didn’t rate Geoff Marsh at all and they thought Merv Hughes should be driving trucks somewhere, not playing Test cricket.”
All of which suited Border perfectly.
“No one over there had seen all the hard work we’d been doing and the subtle changes we’d been making to our set-up.
“We hadn’t won over there for a long time so we had to change things. You can’t just keep doing the same things and expect a different result.”
One of those changes was to adopt a harder approach to all matches, including the “unimportant” games.
“I told the guys we were there to win every game, not just the Tests. If we were playing a county team and someone was on 95 and I wanted to declare, I’d declare. My policy was ‘we’re Australians and we’re going to smash everyone, no matter who we’re playing’.
“The boys bought into it and the mindset was all positive from day one.”
Australia won a tight first Test at Headingley with Taylor scoring 136 and Waugh 177 in the first innings and Alderman taking 10 wickets for the match.
The scene was set.
“I remember thinking, ‘hello we might be getting something going here’,” Border said. “From then on we were on the high ground. The momentum and sense of achievement was palpable.”
Even so, it wasn’t until the side returned to Australia that Border recognised just what he and his team had accomplished.
“Over there we were only reading the English papers and they were full of how bad their team was going, not how well we were going.
“Then we got back home and we were like heroes. They gave us a ticker-tape parade. I remember sitting in a car and looking around at thousands of people cheering and thinking, ‘wow, this really is big’.”
Right now Tim Paine and his team would be a long odds to get that same welcome when they return home from their Ashes tour, but as AB could tell them: it’s cricket – anything can happen.
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Originally published as How Allan Border put some mongrel into Aussie Ashes underdogs
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