The paper round

Earthquakes and Waugh

Rahul Bhatia

December 31, 2003

Steve Waugh: the sun sets on a way of playing cricket © Getty Images

Sometime on Friday night, there was an earthquake that killed more than 20,000 people in Iran. At about the same time, Australians were sleeping comfortably with the knowledge that Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid were dismissed. The next day, the teams decided to help out by signing a shirt that would be auctioned, with the proceedings going towards relief for the survivors.

That shirt would be Steve Waugh's, and for good reason, too. The man's retiring in a week's time, and the world can't get enough of him. Here was a player who became a hero, who became a captain who galvanised a country into believing they were the best at what they did, and somewhere along the way, became a legend. Gideon Haigh, in the London Guardian, likens his retirement to the sun setting on a way of playing cricket. He writes about Allan Border's influence, and how this made Waugh - the player - a role model for a generation of upcoming Australian batsmen. Ricky Ponting and Matthew Hayden learnt from him, much to the mortification of other nations, that a hundred simply wasn't enough. It had to be a big one. Haigh describes the occasion Waugh learnt about mental disintegration, and the time he wasn't happy with a team total of 600. He was aiming for a thousand. As captain, he lacked flair, something Shane Warne believed he had, and that caused a few problems. And how, after the era of Mark Taylor, Waugh took a while to find his feet, but when he did, oh boy.

Rohit Brijnath describes in the Indian Express how Waugh has brought back a smile on the face of every Australian, and also of perceptions about India changing. There's a bit about a defiant Sourav Ganguly, who is, as always, refreshingly candid and mostly optimistic about India's chances in Sydney.

Waugh strikes a pose in the Sydney Morning Herald, saying that he wouldn't like to end his career with a lost series. Ganguly then tops the `duh, obviously' stakes by admitting that Ponting and Hayden will be the key players in Sydney.

On a more admirable front, he defends shielding Tendulkar in the closing overs of the third day, saying that the batsman earned the right to be protected. Ganguly was described as the `classiest night-watchman in Test history' by Mark Nicholas of the Daily Telegraph, when he came out at number four, instead of Tendulkar. If only Tendulkar had scored a century, would the move have worked, Ganguly concluded.

Back to Waugh. There's Peter Roebuck (Sydney Morning Herald, again), who gives the Australian captain credit for maintaining the team's focus, even when Sehwag was doing his thing. As well as the inspirational captaincy that brought about Dravid's downfall. He then praises the patience and application Australia showed, and wonders whether India need to have a rethink about the squad before the next Test.

Finally, Soumya Bhattacharya writes in the same paper about Australia's growing alarm at India's status in world cricket, in a nifty piece that explains how and why champions don't share the podium too easily. He accepts that the home team are better, but India have matched them this series, and it's time Australia understood that they can, and will, be beaten.

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Players/Umpires

Sourav Ganguly

Steve Waugh

Series/Tournaments

India tour of Australia

Teams

India