The Serve

Australia wins opening match, but what does it mean?

 

Game one for the Australians is in the books and it was strangely encouraging.

There was no risk of Scotland being a banana skin. That was locked in when Scotland won the toss and bowled. What were they thinking? That the morning air, providing slightly better than negligible swing - mixed with the less than frightening pace of 120 kilometres an hour - would rattle the best team in the world? Whenever a minnow wins, it’s usually when they bat first, score a moderate total, then watch the established nation wilt under the pressure of embarrassment.

So Australia won by 203 runs. What do they actually take out the match? Glenn McGrath found the old line and length and stuck to it. He wasn’t challenged like he will be down the track, but the early signs are good. Brad Hogg got through seven overs without fear of destruction. Hogg is a confidence player and after five consecutive poundings, he’ll appreciate seven trouble free overs. Ricky Ponting scored a century, but you get the feeling when he phoned home after the match, the conversation to his family would have been about the hotel room, the weather, last nights awful chicken parmigiana, struggling to get a decent internet connection, and ‘oh by the way, today I got a hundred against Scotland…(listening)…yes honey, they have a cricket team…(listening)…I know, but apparently it does count’.

There was one standout set of figures. Shaun Tait finished with 1 for 45 off 8. If it was anyone else producing figures like that against the Scots, there’d be all sorts of questions being asked. Tait though has that rare innate quality to have poor performances swiftly justified by others as: “Oh well, that’s Tait for you’, much in the same way Dennis Rodman is referred to when he’s found in a hotel room swinging from a chandelier, a bottle of tequila in one hand, a model in the other and a farm animal resting cosily next to the bedside table: “Oh well, that’s Dennis for you”.

Bring on the Dutch.