Hm. Tough call no? Would we rather have a non-competitive Australia and therefore one-sided matches or a poor Australia side and good matches? I think most teams and supporters are looking at it the wrong way. Is the Aussie domination a result of them being extremely (extremely) good or others being way below par? I think it’s the others that are way below par and are refusing to improve their standards or are doing it the wrong way! Every sport has a period where one individual or team dominates. Schumacher, Brazil, Federer, Chicago Bulls… they all dominated their respective sport for a while and in the end, I have to say it helped the sport. The onus is really on the other top 8 teams to catch up and make cricket competitive again. I hope Australia is displaced from the top by a team that is as good and not because half the Aussie team retired!

#1   Posted by Aditya Kuber on Sun, April 29, 2007 at 8:55:34

Wikipedia defines match fixing in “organized sports” as a situtation “when a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result.” In that sense, every Aussie match is a case of match fixing :P

Jokes apart, Australia has raised its game consistently over the years...what Taylor left unaccomplished, Steve Waugh achieved, what Waugh left unaccomplished (the final frontier), Ponting achieved. Sadly, the same is not true of other teams. So, instead of calling the Aussie dominance a negative impact, others should think of raising their own game.

Look at the way Aussies have worked on their players...Brad Hogg, Nathan Bracken, Michael Clarke and to a certain extent, even Matthew Hayden are all examples of their development.

#2   Posted by Ullas on Sun, April 29, 2007 at 9:49:04

Monopoly, in sports, is an absolute no no. If one team monopolizes the game, the people from other countries will loose interest in the game. When others loose interest, the talent from them also goes down. The monopolist wins all the games they play. The people from the super team will also loose interest. And their talent suffers so much so that they will never recover from it. Just take west indies for an example, they monopolized the game and they never recovered from it because nobody wanted to play something that is not challenging.

#3   Posted by Senthil on Sun, April 29, 2007 at 11:10:58

Well, if a team is good then you cant really accuse them of being monopolists can you? its not like they buy off every muralidaran that comes along.

they were the better team, although helped a lot by the weather and circumstances in this particular occasion. and of course the Gilli innings which was probably the difference between the teams.

i Dont think the differences between the rest of the world and aussies are as great now that it ever was, in fact if you ask me its gotten narrower over the years.

and if you really think about it, there’s nothing anyone can do about the ‘inbalance’ except try and catch them up.

#4   Posted by Deane on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 12:08:42

amit says “what would happen if this Aussie side was anything like the England side.”

Australia would not have reached the Finals.

#5   Posted by Logic Bastard on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 12:17:22

Logic Bastard, exactly. And the quality of cricket in the final would have been lower, even if you got a contest.

#6   Posted by Amit Varma on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 12:38:37

They are an excellent team, but I always have a certain amount of unpleasantness when watching them.

To be quite honest I don’t like them at all, excellence aside, I think they are historically poor winners and I can hardly wait for the day the other countries actually do something to bring their teams up to the Australian standard......and win.

The sport is being strangled not by Australia, but by the obvious laziness (Sri Lanka aside) of the other major cricket playing nations; who have talent in their ranks.

#7   Posted by Phil on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 1:38:35

I personally feel sports are all about supporting your country. So when India was out it was all over for me.

And when India defeats other teams the way Australia is doing now we would NOT EVEN FOR a moment say that the match was boring.

It’s boring if you loose and interesting if you win or if the match was a cliffhanger.

That’s the case with federer in tennis.You would like matches if you support federer and hate ‘em if you think he kills competition.

I don’t really believe that other teams can’t get to australia’s level but the problem is that if you want to be like australia you have to run your cricket like australia.

I cannot say that the BCCI administration is bad becauses it is the richest board but somehow there’s a fault with the mentality of the players(specially overconfidence).

#8   Posted by Sameer on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 1:58:45

Amit,
The Australian team is full of consummate professionals.  They have proven what competition and open management (free market principle, might I say) does even to a sport.  Australia has not looked back since the Kerry Packer era started.  It took some time to work the kinks out of their system, however, now they are invincible.  Incredible team!!  I said - Team, not a group of individual talented players (that the Indian cricket team is).  It takes a team to win championship - isn’t that obvious - because cricket is a team game.  There are tremendous learnings in this for all other teams that want to reach greatness.  Hope they learn from Australia does and did, so cricket becomes better, not as you pointed what others are saying - Australia winning is bad for cricket.

#9   Posted by Achyut Jajoo on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 2:47:20

a) To Aditya Kuber, for saying exactly what I wanted to say.
b) An interesting question. Why do people really watch sport? What is more attractive, a gripping contest (even if it is West Ham and Wigan playing a relegation battle) or a show of supremacy (and indeed, near perfection) by one person / group a-la Federer / Woods/ Australia? What brings the spectators to the ground, or keeps him/her glued to the TV? What percentage of the sport-viewing public so much as bothers about a rocked-back pull and not the eventual score? And that’s where the answer to the question (as to whether the domination of Australia is good or bad for the game) lies. Comments, anybody?
c) Personally, the only real grouse I have against the Australian cricket team is that they are, apart from being a real good squad, well nigh the best ever in one-dayers, a bunch of graceless, arrogant brats. That is possibly a reason why it is easy to admire a Federer, a Pete, a Woods and a Jordan, perfect examples of sportsmanship all, and easy to hate a Michael Schumacher, who in all honesty was a cheat.

#10   Posted by Sinfully Pinstripe on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 2:52:01

Since Federer was mentioned above....
... I think we are all lucky to watch him play. The same holds for Australia. To watch Gilchrist, Hayden, and McGrath...all 35+ year olds play the way they do and keep raising the standards higher and higher is a thing of amazement and awe.

#11   Posted by Sanjeev on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 3:07:59

I think the Aussies are fantastic for cricket, and deserve every win.  I’ve hoped (in vain now, for a decade) that the other countries would try to learn from the Aussies and try to improve themselves, but that unfortunately hasn’t happened.  And, typical to human nature, now most of them crib that the aussies are too arrogant, and aren’t good for the game.

Such a shame.

#12   Posted by Sunil on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 5:21:15

As a Sri Lankan, I have to appreciate that the Australians bring a machine-like efficiency to the game. In contrast, we South Asians play the game with laziness and flair, which I dont think we can change.

This is because we simply cannot afford world-class facilities, coaches and healthcare at grassroots level. This being said, I think the future of South Asian cricket looks strong. There are quite a few brown ppl who’d nicely challenge in 2011 (I just dont want India to win and make that idiotic Pepsi ad prescient).

Please India-Pak fans, give your young players a chance. I’m sure SL will do the same (Chamara, Malinga and Tharanga are already well on their way). We can do it on home-soil in 2011.

#13   Posted by Anthony on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 6:48:46

Actually in my opinion, in the name of professionalism, aussies and south africans have really done enormous damage to the sport of cricket that was so pleasant to watch. It is sad that other teams are trying to repeat what they did without even thinking about it.

I would rather watch a local district level/ranji match than watch mathew hayden bludgeon. I wonder why you call Punter to be a beautiful player. With the retirement of Damien Martyn, australia have lost even that one player who had grace.

All this rush for a foreign coach is also bringing in considerable unwelcome, in my opinion, change in cricket. Greg chappel or John wright, can not possibly understand the meaning of cricket for a player that wants (and plays) for india. Sport is more than just winning (cliche there, never mind)

But full marks to aussies for their grit though. I don’t want to take anything away from them. They and SL,NZ and RSA, probably are the only teams that still believe that cricket is a team sport.

With Regards
Narasimhan

#14   Posted by Narasimhan on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 7:17:27

You’ve added comments! :’)

I suggested this last week or so. Oh joy, Oh happiness!

No, but seriously competition is different from healthy competition, we certainly don’t wanna see two Englands slug it out, a dominant Australia is a much preferred option. But not having even one close match in the world cup harks back to the days when Sampras was winning his first Grand Slams and the newspapers went, “Samprassszzzzz...”.

#15   Posted by Rohan on Mon, April 30, 2007 at 2:14:54

Who defined ‘beautiful’ in sports - why is it a cover drive ‘more beautiful’ one way than the other? Is it the ease with which it is played? By that metric, Ponting and Hayden play ‘beautiful’ strokes. Why do all strokes have to be played the way an old guy described it years ago? If they can beat you consistently by playing a different way, why is that not the ‘correct’ way of playing the game?

To claim that they are not good to watch because they play differently is nothing but sour grapes.

#16   Posted by HeShootsAndScores on Tue, May 01, 2007 at 12:32:25

I think that a lot depends on the reason that an individual follows the game.

Some people follow it for watching the beauty of game, some watch it for the competitive spirit, some for their national pride and other for their own reasons.

Those who watch cricket to see it as a beautiful game will not crib if Aussies keep on playing beautifully at the expense of competitive games.

But the point is that the world is not black and white and often people see cricket with a mixture of reasons given above and that’s when judgements change too.

For me, while at one hand, it is beautiful to watch a McGrath / Warne bowl and a Gilchrist pull or a Hayden powershot, it pains me to see that no team matches Aussies in spirit, talent, commitment and discipline and that it makes me think that if only other teams were like the Aussies, it would have been like 2 Australias fighting each other (like SA beating Aussies’ 434) and that would be awesome to watch!

It is a matter of perspectives, priorities and wishes!

#17   Posted by Ranjeet on Tue, May 01, 2007 at 3:43:30

I suppose the question, when simplified, boils down to whether on is a fan of the game, the team or the player.  Only one of those is going to be able to watch any team or player perform at a high level and gain pleasure from the experience.

I’m not one who cares about whether the Aussies are arrogant, childish or whatever, because their performance delivers what is most important to me: good cricket.  Even when McGrath abuses Sehwag’s weakness against the short ball or when Ponting destroys Indian dreams like Gilchrist did Sri Lanka’s.

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