CENTURION, 18 February 2003 — It’s great to end the first week of the tournament with convincing wins against two strong teams. From a captain’s point of view, it has been a difficult week with the Shane Warne episode breaking on the eve of our opening game. What has been most heartening is the way the team responded after the initial shock. I was proud that we were all so focused on the job at hand to ensure that we defeated both Pakistan and India convincingly.
Personally, I was just getting used to the questions from the media on whether or not we would play in Zimbabwe, when the news of Shane testing positive broke. I must admit it was a very stressful time, and I am glad that my wife was around to see me through. The coach and the support staff have been absolutely superb right through the week, and they all deserve credit for the results we have achieved.
We have had some pretty intense encounters with India in the past, and were well-prepared to take them on, on Saturday. Many of their batsmen got out while playing attacking strokes, and this suggests that they had decided to play their natural game. This is not a bad approach when you are low on confidence, since it allows you to forget the pressure.
However, they were not good enough on the day and our bowlers were spot on right from the start.
While there was a constant fall of wickets on one side, we felt we were not completely in control till we got Sachin Tendulkar out. He was the one wicket which we were more keen to get than any of the others.
He has single-handedly set up the Indian innings against us on many occasions, which is why we were really jubilant when he was deceived by a good slower ball from Jason Gillespie.
Jason has been bowling superbly in the last one year, but his performance in the India game was sensational.
Since India has been intimidated by extra pace in the past, we decided to open with Brett Lee. He did his job by making early inroads, but this meant that Jason would have to adjust to his role as first-change. He responded magnificently to get key wickets and not allow a single boundary during his entire spell.
We had initially planned on using Brett as opening bowler only in the Indian game. However, since all our matches are day games, we might revisit this option on a cloudy morning since Brett can swing the ball prodigiously when conditions are overcast.
We attended a coaching clinic at Pretoria on Sunday, and were scheduled to return to our base at Potchefstroom for the next game.
The Australian team declared two complete off days on Sunday and Monday, and some of the guys like Andrew Symonds, Jimmy Maher, Brett Lee accompanied me to Sun City. Since I’m traveling with my wife, I decided to take this break to take it easy, and what better place to do that than Sun City. It’s a well-earned break that will help rejuvenate us before the next set of games. (Gameplan)
