I have always believed that at the highest level it’s temperament that separates the men from the boys. Temperament is not just keeping a cool head but also about assessing a situation and adjusting your game according to it. It also means determination to hang in there, when things are not working for you, waiting for the tide to turn and then taking control. It’s about discipline, which is not about going to bed early, but disciplining your game so even if it means that you have to play against your natural grain, you do it till you are able to play with natural instinct that you are born with. Unfortunately, temperament cannot be taught and one has to learn with experience to deal with situations. There’s nobody born with a perfect temperament else we would have had some who would never ever fail. The champions and the greats are able to get the temperament right on more occasions than not and that’s why they are champs. The Australian team is a good example of superb temperament. In a team sport where all eleven can never succeed, it’s how the others make up for those who are having an off day that make the difference between winning and losing. Australia win more than the others not just because they have a team of skilled players but also because it’s players can raise the level of their game and their mind to a higher level when required. Sure they will lose the odd game or the odd series as we saw during the Ashes series last year.
Glen McGrath is a prime example of that temperament. He was carted all over the ground by Chris Gayle so that he had figures of two overs for 20 runs to start with, but finished with two important wickets giving away another four runs in his next five overs. He was trying to bounce out Gayle in his first two overs but at 36 years and on the slow Braborne pitch, he wasn’t quite able to get the ball up where he wanted and so was pulled by Gayle gleefully. He came back to doing what he does best and that is to bowl in the ‘don’t know’ zone for the batsman, where the batsman doesn’t know whether to play the ball or leave it and got the wicket of the West Indian skipper and danger man Brian Lara for only two.
McGrath’s ability to dismiss the champion batsmen of the opposition gives Australia a tremendous advantage and it might be interesting to note that last year when England won the series 2-1, both Tests were in which McGrath didn’t play as he was injured. Ponting had also cleverly kept McGrath back for Lara so Bracken opened the bowling with Brett Lee. The left-hander got rid of Gayle who was stroking the ball quite superbly with a peach of a delivery. To get past a batsman’s defense, especially a batsman in such devastating form, takes something special and it probably was the ball of the tournament.
Inspite of the fact that the West Indians had packed their team with batsmen, nobody was able to stand up and be counted and the disappointing aspect was the number of soft dismissals. Apart from Gayle none of the others were out to anything special which means that their temperament was not quite there on the day it mattered.
The rains may have caused a bit of a worry not from the result point of view but from the traveling aspect as both teams would have been booked to leave immediately after the game. Once the game restarted, Australia strolled to a victory on the back of some elegant strokeplay from both Watson and Martyn.
The latter’s form makes him certain to play in the Ashes series and Watson has made a strong case for himself to be picked as an allrounder in the team.
The Australians showed just why they are the Champions. They raised the level of their game, never lost focus on winning a Trophy that had eluded them in the past and so go home with the confidence that they can regain the Ashes they lost so unexpectedly last year.
