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SPORTS
Cream
Team
The
secret of Australia's success lies in Waugh and work
By
Rohit Brijnath in Melbourne
"We've
not so much got the players to win in India, we've got the team."
-Steve Waugh
How
do you define leadership?" This is typical. Sit down to interview
Aussie coach John Buchanan and he asks you a question. In answer to a
question. There is a suggestion that Buchanan, long-limbed, soft-spoken,
bespectacled, moustached, is Phil Jackson's twin, separated at birth.
The Chicago Bulls coach used to quote Sioux lore during huddles and hand
out books on Zen Buddhism to his team. Buchanan began his first day at
work with the Australian team by hanging up a poster that said, "Today
is the first test of our journey to the 'invincibles'. Let's make the
ride enjoyable and attainable". Invincibles as in Don Bradman's undefeated
1948 team, considered the greatest Australian team ever. And this is on
the first day!
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| PRIDE
AND JOY: The Baggy Greens celebrate yet another wicket |
Anyway, I'm
defining leadership for Buchanan. "Communication skills, ambition,
forging a team ..." Buchanan signals to stop. All right, he says,
"Anything you can define as an ideal leader, tick the boxes, Steve
Waugh has it."
In Australia,
he is Saint Steve of Waugh. In a way he's like Michael Jordan, even reporters
want him to like them. His team too? One journalist mentioned that players,
whenever they speak of him in public, don't call him "Tugga"
or "Steve" but "Stephen". Formality equals reverence.
Waugh has
been fortunate. Nations can't find 11 good men, he has 22. Including a
brother who combats charges of vice with rare virtuosity, a fast bowler
who writes his own Satanic Verses with every delivery, a wicket-keeper
batsman who makes spectating gulls blush with his flying and a team which
take catches to make Superman's bullet-catching wimpish.
Waugh has
been lucky. Three-quarters of the world does not play cricket, and half
the remaining quarter has forgotten how to. It is not a sufficient explanation.
This summer they have played five Tests and 10 one-day internationals.
Lost none. Last year was terrible. They lost one match. It is freakish,
frightening. You need to travel to another sport-Ferenc Puskas' Hungarian
soccer team which won 32 straight matches over four years in the 1950s-to
find a suitable comparison.
And it is
because Waugh (and Buchanan) believe, like the Hopis, that "one finger
can't lift a pebble". They have fashioned a fresh concept of team.
This isn't 11 men, this is one Australia. Says Tony Greig: "Steve
was disappointed when he was overlooked for Taylor; now he wants to make
a difference." He has.
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"We've
not so much got the players to win in India, we've got the team."
-Steve Waugh
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Waugh invokes
the past, and the legacy they are entrusted with. He invites other sportsmen
to speak at dinners. He speaks not of chasing history but making it. He
encourages ruthlessness, at 3-0 with blood on the tongue don't sit back,
make it 5-0. He has forged a team that can win, as it has done this summer,
without Brett Lee in some matches, or McGrath rested, or brother Mark
not opening, or even with him gone and Gilchrist in charge. The machine
is so powerful, so complete with momentum, that the cogs are interchangeable.
And it is
a team not successful because they do the right things; it's because they
do them well. Says Buchanan, the planner (Waugh, therefore, leader and
executor): "They're always wanting to be better tomorrow than they
were yesterday." It means no detail is too minute to escape significance.
In Kenya, Waugh talked during a team meeting about batting in a certain
situation, mentally de-constructing an innings perhaps; another player
might deal with the situation differently, but even one point learnt is
an edge gained.
And always
they search for that edge, even in the interview room. As an orator, Waugh,
contrary to reports, is not quite Churchillian, but he is articulate,
astute, a sender of messages. When this writer asked him if he'd seen
any of India's spinner, he said no. "It doesn't matter," he
continued, "they will be young, inexperienced and a little intimidated.
The pressure will be on them".
His team
are masters because they enjoy playing student. For India, Colin Miller
cycled in sauna-like conditions, ice vests were sought, the Indian liaison
officer from the last tour flew in from Sydney to brief them. Buchanan
himself has surfed the Internet, perused averages, dissected tapes, even
seeking out the Zimbabweans who toured India last.
Homework
may not work; but it will be tried. Explains former Somerset captain Peter
Roebuck: "No one keeps a straight mid off, very deep, early in a
Test, but Wavell Hinds likes to go there, and as soon he came in, there
was one."
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The
Aussies succeed because they do the simple things well.
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Detail, remember.
It means even tail-enders are scrutinised, for 15 runs, even in a Test,
can be the first day's ghost come haunting on the last hour of the fifth
day. So if Mervyn Dillon liked to throw a Tyson-ish uppercut with the
bat, third man was waiting for that punch. In fielding balls will inevitably
go to the wrong hand, at awkward positions, so right-handers practise
throwing with the left, from the back of their hands or even when on their
knees. If fielding is ballet each man wants to play Nijinsky.
No possibility
is left unexplored. For a team so roughly edged they could have been used
as extras in Gladiator-no make-up or rehearsal of invectives required-there
is oddly a cerebral quality to them. Primitive man with a modern thinking
cap. With 20 or so players to choose from in the one-dayers, Waugh saw
wisdom in rotating players and enforced it as a policy: it ensured uniform
readiness, freshness and subtly kept a cutthroat competitiveness flaming.
If Gilchrist-Waugh are injured, Andrew Symonds/Darren Lehmann/Damien Martyn,
each tried, each tested, can fill in. India cannot find a spinner; Stuart
McGill, with recent figures superior to Warne, remains home knitting.
Sports'
biggest cliche, "There is no I in team", has found its resting
place. This team has journeyed well. And two examples tell that story.
The first comes when Buchanan says, "I don't know whether we'd tolerate
the same level of individualism if Brian Lara played for Australia."
The second comes via an anecdote. If once Buchanan put up posters, he
has been overtaken: now the team does it, inspiring, goal-oriented posters
"made by the whole group".
Australia's
team stand wrapped in a confidence, an arrogance, that is alarming and
(if not for some inexplicable churlishness) even beautiful to behold.
Whether the Indian heat, the pitches, the crowds, food, smog, chaos, Tendulkar,
can strip them off it, remains the final examination of their skill, togetherness
and their tilt at immortality. To win in the subcontinent, to win here
after 30 years, would end most arguments. They know it, but incredibly
they admit it.
Stephen
Waugh says the past is fine, but the past is irrelevant. He says, "It's
in India that we are going to be judged."
It is the
last move of the chess player. He's asking his team if they are ready
for greatness.
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