Robert Craddock: Steve Waugh should be called in to help Australian cricket team reunite
AUSTRALIAN cricket this week launched an advertising campaign featuring players reconnecting with the public. The challenge now is to reconnect with each other.
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AUSTRALIAN cricket this week launched an advertising campaign featuring players reconnecting with the public. The challenge now is to reconnect with each other.
To rebuild a team spirit which was horribly ripped apart with the ball tampering scandal in South Africa and somehow needs to be put back together again in next month’s Test series against Pakistan in Dubai.
It’s why it would make so much sense for Justin Langer to ask his old mate Steve Waugh to address the team when they assemble in Sydney this week — or the next time they pass through Sydney.
Waugh saw it all as a Test cricketer, the fragmented bad old days of the mid-1980s when it was every man for himself to the glory days of the 1990s when — despite the odd blow-up — there was some wonderfully close relationships formed that still exist today.
And, most importantly, he knows how to get from the basement to the penthouse because he lived it.
As Waugh is so understated and happy to stay well away from public view, he has sadly become an underused resource in Australian cricket.
You don’t need him to talk about the glory days — but how to take a fractured team and turn it into something better. Very few have done it.
There has been so much thought given to an image makeover for this Australian team it’s almost been forgotten an even bigger challenge than connecting with the public is rebuilding the team.
One sentence no-one will utter this summer is “even though we are 3-0 down to India isn’t it lovely to see the players staying back and signing autographs’’ for public goodwill means little if the team is going backwards.
The Australian Test squad named for Dubai on Tuesday will be one of the most fragile to wear the baggy green for 20 years.
When teams are under pressure they tend to adopt an every man for himself mentality. No-one’s to blame for that. Waugh admits he did it in the mid-1980s. They all did. It’s what human beings do.
Ben Horne’s story that veteran Peter Siddle was under consideration as a senior fast bowling pro who could act as a team mentor was sound logic for while he may only be a rough chance of making the tour Siddle would certainly pay his way off the field if he did.
A subtle reminder of the need for team mentorship came this week with the retirement of England’s decorated opener Alastair Cook.
Former England Test captain Michael Atherton wrote how for the first time in 50 years England will not have a senior opening batsman who can mentor the new boy.
A chain which stretched from Geoff Boycott, through Gooch, Atherton, Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Strauss and Cook himself had been broken.
“I can’t remember much of what Gooch used to say to me about opening the batting in Test cricket, but I know that I learnt the game at the highest level by watching him,’’ Atherton wrote.
With David Warner gone for a year, Matt Renshaw will open the batting for Australia in Dubai. At the moment he does not even know who his partner will be. It could be Joe Burns, or Shaun Marsh or some left-field choice. Right from the moment Australia walks through the gate there will be a sense the team is on trial and vulnerable.
These are tough times but out of such blazing furnaces do heroes emerge.
THE GOOD: Make that the great. The sight of scrum collapse victim Conor Tweedy leaving hospital with a smile and a positive attitude despite being wheelchair bound was an inspiration which stretches far beyond the sporting world. Conor remains a credit to his parents Sean and Bec for the courage he has displayed over the past month.
THE BAD: The lack of promotion for Saturday night’s Wallaby Test against South Africa at Suncorp Stadium. Basing themselves in no man’s land at hidden-away Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast was a questionable move for the Wallabies in a struggling sport whose supporter base is dwindling by the year. Many Brisbane sports fans are still unaware the Test is on.
THE UGLY: The continued denials from rugby league people over the seriousness of the Bulldogs Mad Monday fiasco. It was juvenile, offensive and just plain dumb. Coach Dean Pay, who attended the day, should have his future at the club questioned.
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Originally published as Robert Craddock: Steve Waugh should be called in to help Australian cricket team reunite
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