Take a leaf out of our book, says Waugh
Australia, as expected, won their first Test against Bangladesh by an innings
Wisden CricInfo staff
20-Jul-2003
Bangladesh 97 and 178 (Bashar 54, Al Sahariar 36; MacGill 5 for 65) lost to Australia 407 for 7 dec
Australia, as expected, won their first Test against Bangladesh by an innings. They weren't quite at their ruthless best, but they didn't need to be. Bangladesh showed a singular lack of application in their first innings, though they showed some spine in the second before a sudden middle-order collapse brought them to their knees. Steve Waugh was in a relective mood after winning his record 37th Test as captain; Dav Whatmore could only watch in despair as Bangladesh lost his first Test as their coach; Stuart MacGill, the chief architect of Australia's domination on the final day, picking up his seventh five-wicket haul, was exhilarated. Here is what they had to say:
Steve Waugh
On what makes Australia special: It's about our scoring rate and how quickly we can get our runs and put the opposition in. it's a positive way of playing the game and we like to win in quick time.
On what makes Australia special: It's about our scoring rate and how quickly we can get our runs and put the opposition in. it's a positive way of playing the game and we like to win in quick time.
It helps when you have someone like Adam Gilchrist batting at number seven who can make the game go forward so quickly and put a lot of pressure on the opposition. We score so quickly that we have extra time to take those 20 wickets and we can put a lot of pressure on their batsmen.
That's the way cricket should be played and if all the countries can take a leaf out of that book then it's good for world cricket.
On how Tests involving Australia hardly ever last five days: A lot of the games are finishing early, but I think the quality of cricket we put out in that period of time is much better than five dull boring days. I'd rather have three exciting days and make the spectators enjoy the cricket we play; we rather play that way as well. I hope the public appreciate the way we play and I think we'll continue
that way.
Dav Whatmore
On what he makes of the team he's just taken charge of: I'm just being a little patient to make assessments given the class of opposition that we faced here. It will take a bit more time to really separate and go on and I think we have to be patient before making any firm assessments.
On what he makes of the team he's just taken charge of: I'm just being a little patient to make assessments given the class of opposition that we faced here. It will take a bit more time to really separate and go on and I think we have to be patient before making any firm assessments.
The positives from the game: There were indications of fight here and that's promising and, really, the game, for me, wasn't about winning or losing. It's about being to see what we can do under pressure and try to match the opposition and be as competitive as
we possibly could.
There were times when I thought Australia had to fight for their runs - the first 100-150 runs it was a real struggle for them. If it was any other team I believe there was enough pressure applied to pick up more wickets, which has a stabilising effect when you come to chase runs in the second innings, but it wasn't to be.
On how he felt at the end of the game: I don't think any coach is satisfied - maybe [John] Buchanan [Australia's coach] might be a bit more satisfied. I'm not sure if I will be satisfied for a long while yet, but it's a matter of identifying areas where we need to improve -it's a fairly easy area to identify for us - and going ahead and working on it.
Stuart MacGill:
On the seventh five-wicket haul of his 24-Test career: I've learned through my career that when you get a chance with the ball you have to make the most of it, so I'm really quite satisfied with how it went today.
On the seventh five-wicket haul of his 24-Test career: I've learned through my career that when you get a chance with the ball you have to make the most of it, so I'm really quite satisfied with how it went today.
On how so many of his wickets in this game came from the wrong `un: Normally 90% of my wickets come from my legbreak and even in the first innings I got both my wickets with something different. In this game I felt if I was consistent with my legbreak perhaps the
variation was a chance and it was.
On how county cricket has helped his bowling: I've been playing for Nottinghamshire in the English county championship and we play on really slow wickets and I think it's improving my bowling because the margin for error is much smaller over there and I have to work a
little bit more on my consistency.
On Mashrafe's Mortaza's slog against him (14 runs in an over): That last six I got hit for was definitely one of the biggest sixes off my bowling.
Click here to read day 2 quotes.