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Your responses to - Is Australia in a one-horse race, or will SL, NZ, Pak, Eng or India challenge their supremacy?

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Name: Jillu
Comment: I have a strong penchant for cricket so I want to thank Rediff for speaking my mind out! Australians are no doubt the World champions and are clearly dominant champions after humiliating SA, who are the next best team in the game. I find very little reason for the Australians to lose, may be on their bad day where match-winners fail in legion! Let's take a closer look into this mighty squad! Jonty Rhodes is obviously the best fielder in the world but who is second? I think Ricky Ponting - after all, the direct hits make the difference.

Shane Warne, on his day, can destroy any team, like the World Cup final. Glen McGrath - is he the best bowler with Donald and Ambrose retiring? Jason Gillespie is no Venki Prasad or Srinath - he's a great support bowler for McGrath. Bret Lee, probably, the quickest bowler in the world and has a reputation for scoring quick some 15 or 20! Adam Gilchrist - he is more a batsman than a wicketkeeper; if somebody can score runs faster than him - it should be Tendulkar! Great player to have as an opener! Mike Bevan - he has the best average in One-day cricket; he may not score as quick as Gilchrist, but he can play match-winning innings when the teams in hot waters below score off 100 with four wickets lost! Jimmy Maher - I must admit he is a promise and great one indeed. I don't think anybody can tie a match with one wicket in hand and against the pace of Pollock and Ntini! Daren Lehman and Damien Martyn (I think he's the most elegant right-hander today) are quite useful players. Do we still need reasons to think somebody can better these people? Definitely not! -- Jillu.

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Name: Sunil Rajappan
Comment: No, it is not in a one-horse race. Sri Lanka, Pakistan & NZ are the biggest challengers for 3 simple reasons: 1. Australia's away series against each of them (also in India) have been close to disasters or just saving the skin types; 2. Australia has generally gained an upper edge by their regular slandering in the press and indulging in psyche warfare outside the ground thru the media/press - which other teams have now caught up with or learnt the act.

(Stephen Fleming, before the England series, Waqar, before the West Indies series - are cases in point).

3. The average age of the playing team (though budding with new youngsters ready to try their luck at world class) is too high, what with many stalwarts up for retirement or just years away from them - whereas SL, NZ & Pak have seen a new crop of youngsters who have proved themselves time & again - in fact some have also been readied for eventual captaincy !

Name: Suhas
Comment: Well I really do think so that the mighty Australians are a one-horse race; well as of teams challenging them well, New Zealand came close but I think it was one of those coincidences when the Australians were a bit sluggish and New Zealand played well, Otherwise, if the Australians get going I really don't see any team challenging them. And I guess they have proved this time and time again, the latest instance is by beating South Africa 3-0 at home and 2-1 in South Africa.

Well, though India had beaten Australia, that was a very close series and could have gone either way, and, mind you, the previous year Australia had beaten India 3-0 in Australia.

Australia were the first team to beat India in India in the one day games, and moreover, Australia is, I, guess, the only team which has such an impressive record abroad; not to speak about their home record. They just murder every team visiting them. This is just due to their aggressive and so positive approach towards the game. Their bench is really as good as another team with Slater, Bevan Lehmann waiting to get into the team; as for the bowlers, with Miller, Macgill and Fleming, this really looks a formidable team for a long, long time to come.

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Name: Rajkumar
Comment: Australia is winning more matches, but do not forget the fact that they did not even qualify for the finals of VB Series on their own soil. Teams like Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Pakistan are capable of beating them.

New Zealand proved it in the VB series. The Australians are not playing frequently against Sri Lanka. .Most of the present Aussies will surrender meekly to Muralitharan if they do not have Darell Hair to help them out. My hope is that Sri Lanka and New Zealand shall put up an impressive performance in the forthcoming World Cup and It won't be an easy drive for the Aussies.

Name: Umesh Dharmatti
Comment: Australia is a tremendous blend of talented players. They are not dependent on an individual's performance like we expect that only Sachin should score. In case of the Australian team, one cannot write off a single player; therefore the opposition is always on the toes till the last wicket falls.

Their bowling attack is world-class. Most importantly, they play positive and aggressive cricket. Hence, they will be the number one Test team, and it is highly difficult for any other team to reach that level. - UMESH

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Name: Anita
Comment: Now we know that the South Africans were only the pretenders in the challenge against Australia. The Proteas sure have the spirit and professionalism to beat them. But what they so obviously lack is talent. Therefore, of all the teams today, I will bet on India to be the one with the talent to beat the Aussies. The Indians are a mercurial bunch. This is a team that is tasting a few things for the first time. They are being managed by a devoted coach, a determined skipper and has seniors who devote much time with the youngsters in the side. And I believe, that this team very desperately wants to be the best. Wants to be respected. Perhaps, they don't look it. Perhaps they don't seem like a team that will chew the head of their opponents the moment they are in the field. But this team has a lot of pride. And what they need to do is to wear it on their sleeve, not lock it away inside their hearts. And we have players with an appetite for a fight. Youngsters who don't mind losing but yet won't throw in the towel midway. We have juniors teaching pride, arrogance and belief to their more illustrious seniors. Teaching them the passion for a challenge. All this team needs now is to gel sheer talent with belief. And they can rest assured, the nation won't term their belief as arrogance.

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Name: Swapnil Srivastava
Comment: Any side in cricket cannot be said to be the only horse, especially the Australians. Although they are a very good side but they have to still prove themselves or rather prove themselves on the subcontinent soil, where the tracks are not pacy and bouncy, but turning ones. It has been proven again and again in the past that Australia never look the same confident side while travelling to India or other subcontinent powers. The strongest asset that Australian had while touring India was the services given to them by the Waugh brothers Both of them are good players of spin bowling but in the absence of both of these brothers I dont think that Australia will be the same side while they travel to the subcontinent. Any country can play well when the conditions are the same but to prove that they are outstanding in any conditions, I personally feel that they are far far behind. It's only the matter of time when the South Africans will be to the best of their attack and I'm sure that will be a route of the Australians in the World Cup.

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Name: Vineesh Vedsen
Comment: At the present stage of world cricket, nobody seems to be really competing with the mighty Aussies. They are on a similar roll like Lloyd's men of the late 70s and early 80s. It will only require a super-human effort to stop them in their tracks. Laxman, Dravid, Harbhajan (in 2001) and Lara (in 1999) have been the only ones to stand out and stop the Aussies in their trail. Though one nation that has still not bowed to them is India in their own den. But India otherwise is very fragile. New Zealand is far too inconsistent. After a brilliant series against Australia in Australia they faded against England on their own grounds. Sri Lanka is proving far too powerful at home, but the moment they leave their shores, they have been found to be edgy, especially outside the sub-continent. Pakistan has its own volatility problem. One day on a high and next day in the abyss is the hallmark of Pakistan cricket.

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Name: Ratnakar
Comment: It used to be said of Bjorn Borg: we play tennis; he plays something else. I think the same can be said about the Australian team notwithstanding setbacks in the Indian series and the triangular series. They are just too good. On form, I really don't see any team being a serious challenger to them. Pakistan could have been, but time and again they have been ruthlessly exposed by the Aussies for what they are a bunch of pretenders. India might gain an edge over them at home, but in Australia, they might as well call it quits. While New Zealand and England are good enough, I really don't see them as serious challengers to Australia. So, right now, I feel Australia is like what Brazil was in soccer in the 60s and 50s -- the undisputed champs.

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Name: Shyam
Comment: It could be very tempting to put your money on Australia, but hold on people ... the Test Championship is over a long period of time. Let's first take into account that the championship is not an ODI World Cup, to be held over a couple of months or so. What we to realize is that this level of consistency is hard to keep going. True that these guys from Down Under have kept the juggernaut rolling for more time than other international teams would have wished, but I see a change coming about in the Australian side, whereby they would cease to be invincible.

First of all, very soon we are going to see Australia without the Waughs. Then we would see the decline of Hayden and Langer. The senior (or may I say the older) guys in the team will have to go. Also, players like Steve Waugh, Mark Waugh, Justin Langer and others weren't heroes overnight; they gradually came into the limelight as they performed consistently. So after the famed players finally hang up their (which frankly is not very far away in time) Australia must lose their momentum as they will too go through a "transition period". Meanwhile, let's not forget the rest of the teams. Australia will not permanently whitewash other teams even when they remain at the top. True, they will beat other teams more than they beat them, but the "others" will always remain within "striking distance" to dislodge the Aussies. This could be any team, but it would take a lot of discipline nevertheless. So, I would bet that the at some point of time the "law of averages " will catch up and pull the Aussies down the table, whether they like it or not !

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Name: Destiny Knightly
Comment: I am an Australian, so perhaps my answer will be obvious. I think Australia are far and away the best team in world cricket at the moment - no matter which form of the game is considered. However, that doesn't mean they're invincible. They are the BEST and that means, that when they lose it usually takes a brilliant performance from the opposition (VVS Laxman) or a whole lot of complacency (3rd Test vs. South Africa). But - and I do honestly think this - if Australia were to play 5 Test matches against any one country - i believe that they would in the end emerge victors. The same applies to One-day games although perhaps it's a little more unpredictable.

In another note, I think that the dropping of the Waugh brothers was a very dangerous gamble by the Australian selectors - although, right now, it seems to have been a good punt.

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