Chronicles of any successful year would normally be expected to begin on a triumphant note

John Polack31-Dec-2001Chronicles of any successful year would normally be expected to begin on a triumphant note.Yet, in 2001, Australian cricket’s defining event was its saddest.The death of Sir Donald Bradman didn’t just represent the passing of the world’s greatest-ever player. It was also as though a stake had been driven through the heart of the nation.Bradman’s influence, some 53 years beyond the time of his last Test match, still towered over the game. He was Australia’s finest cricketer; one of its greatest administrators; and a man whose legend will remain undiminished.As word of his death spread in the early hours of 26 February, television and radio stations suspended existing broadcasts; writers in magazines and papers commandeered acres of newsprint; and conversations across the country readily turned to the extent to which Bradman had defined what it means to be Australian.The country’s psyche was affected for days, its mood utterly transformed.The scale of the reaction was unprecedented. Though it wasn’t the only event in Australian cricket this year without historical lead.It was in early March that the national team’s production of a 16th consecutive Test victory ensured that it had established a record unlikely to be equalled in a hurry.As it arrived – at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai – the win looked like proving seminal for other reasons too. It had been 31 years since the country’s last series triumph in India and there were few feats or countries that Steve Waugh’s team had left to conquer by then.But it wasn’t just at home that normality was being re-defined.As Waugh enforced a follow-on in Kolkata that seemed set to consign India to series defeat, it triggered a remarkable reversal that only two men appeared to have foreseen. VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid, sensing a last chance to defend the ‘last frontier’, dramatically destroyed the dream that the Australians might never be beaten again.Albeit that Laxman needed to produce India’s highest individual Test score and that they needed to forge the small matter of a 374-run partnership between them to show that it was possible.Not even a Matthew Hayden double century – in the midst of a record-breaking haul of runs by an Australian during a calendar year – could retrieve the situation in the Third Test in Chennai. Instead, it was Harbhajan Singh’s progression to a haul of 32 wickets in three matches that decisively shaped the contest’s fate. The Australians were denied in a tension-laced finish.They were greeted with the consolation of having played in one of the sport’s greatest series, and the knowledge that the gap between victor and vanquished had been narrow. Yet there lingered a sense of opportunities lost. Waugh was so moved that he later canvassed the idea of playing into his forties to head to India again.As deflating as such events may have been, though, they were also isolated. Because Australian cricket, in the main, indulged in another astonishingly successful 12 months as a whole.It was in July that Australia was crowned as Test cricket’s world champion team. Bestowed on the side by the International Cricket Council on the basis of its compelling form over the preceding five years, the legitimacy of the mantle was confirmed by a crushing 5-0 clean sweep of West Indies at the start of 2001; a 4-1 thumping of England in another lopsided Ashes series in the middle of the year; and another uncomplicated triumph over nearest challenger South Africa at the end.So routine had the players’ winning habit become that even draws were seen as outcomes worth avoiding. The team’s spirit of enterprise was such that its only Ashes loss arrived as acting captain Adam Gilchrist responded to poor weather in Leeds, eschewed a safety-first option, and risked defeat in the name of keeping a 5-0 series outcome a possibility. Waugh tried the tactic again in a rain-ravaged match against New Zealand in Brisbane, though this time even more boldly in that he did so at the start of a series and armed with an even smaller lead.It was doubtless this appreciation of the game’s broader interests, and the appealing sense of brinkmanship he allied to it, that played a role in helping Waugh land the Allan Border Medal – Australian cricket’s greatest individual accolade – in February. The ever-alacritous Colin Miller’s acceptance of the Test Player of the Year award was another reward for a player of adventurous spirit. Darren Lehmann’s continued anointment as State Player of the Year made it a trifecta.Lehmann’s 12 months were also punctuated by his nomination – alongside Tasmania’s Shaun Young – as Mercantile Mutual Cup Player of the Season, and the considerable achievement of becoming the first-foreign born player not only to captain Yorkshire but also to help it to a first-class title. Not to mention his feat in becoming the most prolific run scorer in the 110-year history of interstate first-class cricket in Australia.His domination individually was mirrored by Queensland collectively as the Bulls secured a maiden set of back-to-back first-class titles. Their win over Victoria in the Final did not come without controversy. Yet there remain few signs that the other states are close to rivalling Queensland cricket’s level of professionalism.Following an eight-year drought, the return of coach Steve Rixon and a match-winning century from the redoubtable Michael Bevan guaranteed that it was New South Wales that claimed the Mercantile Mutual Cup title. The Blues’ win marked the end of an innovative limited-overs season, during which a brace of rule changes and an expanded program of matches had been introduced. Further modifications followed later in the year with a competition name-change and the offer of a one million dollar prize to batsmen – the first of its kind in world cricket.Though it wasn’t the year’s only sign (in more ways than one) of the extent of cricket’s financial growth in Australia in recent times.As a new Memorandum of Understanding between the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) and the Australian Cricketers’ Association was signed in May, it became obvious that the country was even moving close to producing its first millionaire player. What was also clear in the document was evidence of a sharp rise in overall Australian cricket revenue during recent summers. Though the departures of the Board’s CEO, Malcolm Speed, and its Chairman, Denis Rogers, will raise new challenges for successors James Sutherland and Bob Merriman, the pattern of growth appears under no imminent threat.In women’s cricket, the national team rebounded from a heartbreaking defeat in the World Cup Final late in 2000 to re-assert its status as an international powerhouse. Karen Rolton carved a niche in the record books by registering the highest score in women’s Test history with an innings of 209 at Headingley in July. Just for good measure, this came only one match after Michelle Goszko had equalled the old mark of 204. Legendary fast bowler Charmaine Mason’s retirement offered a sad note, but there were few other negatives as an Ashes clean sweep was complemented by five straight victories over England and Ireland in the respective series of one-day internationals that followed.It was also a tumultuous year for the country’s younger players. Following Rod Marsh’s shock departure as head of the Australian Cricket Academy in July to accept the equivalent post in England, the ACB commissioned an intensive review of its means of training and educating aspiring cricketers. By December it was ready to act upon the review’s findings, unveiling a series of initiatives aimed at revamping the 13-year-old Academy system and introducing a more comprehensive network of development programs.Precisely how such measures affect the ways in which Australia’s cricketers of the future are identified and developed remains to be seen.How ever the process occurs, though, it is inevitable that such players – and administrators – confront a daunting task. For they will be hard pressed to replicate the standard that applies to virtually all aspects of the game right now.Its greatest practitioner has gone and a pair of its most respected administrators too. Yet, at the end of 2001, Australian cricket remains in rudely good health.