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England shed self-doubt
By Ranil Abeynaike
In the end it is the player and the team of players who make the most of the piece of flesh beneath the skull-cap, between the ears, that ends carrying away the trophies. This is provided that ability and technical competence are equal or nearly equal.What a test series the battle for the Ashes has turned out to be. Truly a “test” of all the skills in the game. Three games played, the fourth in progress and one to go thereafter, the series has provided a fresh lease of life to the five day game.Since the end-years of Alan Border, over a decade ago now the Australians began their dominance. Through the Mark Taylor years to the Steve Waugh era, they rose and rose and demolished all opposition. There were fleeting instances when they failed, that is acceptable. Human beings in sphere of life cannot be perfect, they can be excellent. That the Aussies have achieved and the cricket world accepts it.

Now, which nation has the mental strength to outdo these great cricketers? Their dominance is similar to the period when Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards led the all conquering West Indians. Their production line kept producing players no end during that period. Particularly in the batting and pace bowling departments a new find kept cropping up every few months. No doubt, success breeds success. With success, players obtain supreme confidence and an enhanced state of mental strength. This overflows onto the new players who come through the ranks. Then comes a period in time when a number of the seniors, the stalwarts, begin to decline. They remain to be good enough, but the form becomes inconsistent, injuries become more frequent. That is the sign of danger.

In the recent years the Australians have been clever. They have released some of their top players even before the “use by” date. It has been possible because the replacements have been available and good enough. Even the West Indians were in that enviable position in the nineteen eighties but by the mid nineteen nineties the production plant had begun to run dry. Today they battle for survival. Even the Australians went through a similar period when Greg Chappell, Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee, retired simultaneously. They have built a very solid infra structure, learning from that bitter period when they too took a tumble.

Pretty soon they will experience Glen McGrath. Shane Warne, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist. Mathew Hayden, Michael Kasperwicz, all quitting in the space of a couple of years. They will have to be very clever in grooming new players to fill these mighty boots. Certainly not an easy task.
England meanwhile have been strategically planning their moves in the past five years or so. They have been working hard on all fronts to recapture the past glory. At present they have a good unit of players for test cricket and are improving in the one day games too.

India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and New Zealand too have individuals in their ranks to go out and challenge the Australians. England, this summer have shed all self-doubt and played positively, not letting any one poor performance weigh them down. Should that be the attitude and approach of the other four nations, then some thoroughly competitive games of cricket could be witnessed in the forthcoming years.

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