This Australian team does not seem to have the same hunger

as the ones we have seen before for around 15 years.

Don't have the players- No Mcgrath, no warne, no Langer, no Martyn, no Gilly heck not even Brad Hogg

It is more than just the missing players. There seems to be something msising on the attitude front. I have seen Australian players with much less talent than this team show a lot more OOMPH. At times it almost looked like the Aussie players did not want to do anything to offend the Indian public.

It may be that our aggression has been tempered by the fallout from Sydney but I think the problem is more personnel than hunger.

They're just not as good now as they were 3-4 years ago. Go back to 2004 and Australia had at least 7 genuine world class players in the one side. In fact you could argue that every player that took the field for Australia between 2001 and 2006 was a world class cricketer (With the exception of a few here and there who were dump- Tait, Watson etc...) These days, they maybe have 3-4 genuine world class players in their team, surrounded by others who are pretty good (Clarke, Johnson, Katich) and others who aren't really anything special at all (Watson, White, Haddin).

Clearly we are not as hungry because the man that ate all the pies is no longer around to enhance the hunger meter.

Or they're all sick to death of Matthew Hayden and his cooking. Probably counting down the days until he retires....

PlanetPakistan wrote:Don't have the players- No Mcgrath, no warne, no Langer, no Martyn, no Gilly heck not even Brad Hogg

You got it.

Hunger is not the problem.

At times it almost looked like the Aussie players did not want to do anything to offend the Indian public.

How incorrect this statement is?

As everyone said they no longer have the necessary personnel at their disposal to be as ruthless as they were, say 2 years back.

But if you want to attribute all of it to IPL or lure of Indian rupees, then its your choice.

Instead of praising the efforts of Zaheer, Ishant, Bhajji, Tendulkar and VVS to secure this draw, you seem to be accusing Australians of under performing while playing for their country which I believe is simply not true.

Imo Australia, India, and South Africa are now on a par in test cricket. Can only be good for the game. Ignore the rankings. Australia's dominance has been so comprehensive in the last 10 years that it will probably be another 2 years before the flawed ICC rankings start reflecting where the teams are truly at.

SG wrote:

At times it almost looked like the Aussie players did not want to do anything to offend the Indian public.

How incorrect this statement is?

As everyone said they no longer have the necessary personnel at their disposal to be as ruthless as they were, say 2 years back.

But if you want to attribute to IPL or lure of Indian rupees, then its your choice.

They still have Hayden but he wasn't quite the mouthy qunt he can be.

I think he was getting at they are conscious of the crap they copped in the media following the Sydney Test so they are at least trying to play nicer

Media spotlight is definitely there on both the teams for their behavior. This I concede.

One can't sledge the opposition like one used to do.

Still I don't believe once for a moment that Australian didn't want to win this test as dearly as say any other Australian team that toured India. I think this team would've wanted to win this test as badly.

Even though Indian team is capable enough to self destruct, Australians are clearly lacking the right personnel to win in India is crystal clear to everyone.

SG wrote:Media spotlight is definitely there on both the teams for their behavior. This I concede.

One can't sledge the opposition like one used to do.

Still I don't believe once for a moment that Australian didn't want to win this test as dearly as say any other Australian team that toured India. I think this team would've wanted to win this test as badly.

Even though Indian team is capable enough to self destruct, Australians are clearly lacking the right personnel to win in India is crystal clear to everyone.

Yup, without question.

Maybe Josh has confused lack of ruthlessness/quntishness with a lack of hunger.

(and both those things go down merely by the fact that the mon symonds isn't there)

Till a year (?) or so ago I always had the feeling that an Aussie team would get it done no matter what. They just had batsman after batsman or bowler after bowler coming in. Get one, you had another batsard queuing up, worse than the one who just left.

This team has four people like that - Ponting, Hussey, Hayden (who hasn't done well so far) and maybe Lee (same), who simply emanate that can't lose no matter what vibe.

The rest of the team, meh, I don't care if they score centuries or get five fors, we'll always have a chance.

That's the difference between Australia back then, and now. This team can be taken, you try hard enough. That other one, you had to be very very lucky as well.

The greatest trick the Australian team ever pulled, was convincing the world that they couldn't be beaten.

And yes, I agree with Furri. When Australia were 50-5, Gilchrist would walk in and say, "Sod this, we're gonna win this game" and when the opposition had 6 wickets in hand and needed 40 runs to win, Shane Warne would grab the ball and say, "Sod this, we're gonna win this game."

This team doesn't have the same belief. To be honest, i've always thought that Ponting was more insecure than the likes of Gilchrist and Warne. Ponting has been a great performer over the years, but when the chips were down, I never thought he had the same belief that Australia could fight back as Warne and Gilchrist did.

To add to what I said, if there was two guys in this team I'd especially target as an opposing captain, it would be Hussey and Ponting. And if there was just one guy, Hussey.

You get these two in a doubtful frame of mind, i.e a bad run of form, you have a great chance over a series.

And even so, Hussey doesn't usually take an opposition attack apart like Hayden, Gilchrist and Ponting have done over the years. He's a solid accumulator, but fielding captains are unlikely to ever start panicking about the scoring rate whilst he's at the crease. Australia now rely a lot on Hayden and Ponting to score quickly in order to actually win matches, rather than draw them. In the past, all of Australia's top 6 were capable of tearing an attack apart on their day. Now only 2 of them are capable of that.

I feel that Oz are still looking quite good for all the changes in personnel. This was the first test after a long break for many . . . Haydos and Punter had been injured and Lee had personal problems that lead him to miss the ODIs against the Bangers, so those 3 were well underdone. I think Midge and Gump will be better for the run, and Watson actually bolwed pretty well.

It was a pitch that wold see most games drawn . . . just hard to dismiss batsmen who put their heads down . . . India weren't looking to score on the last day, so the uneven bounce wasn't such a threat.

If the next pitch is similar (as SG has suggested), I would expect another draw.

Australia's batting should remain good for the next 2-3 years. The question is- Do they now have the bowling firepower to bowl good teams out on flat pitches?

Tayne Pocson did a pretty decent job but Token is a huge loss for providing the firepower in the lower order. I said before the gawn fishing stuff that he was probably the most vital batsman in the team for this tour.

Haddin and YT have taken teams apart at state level but whether they have the belief or ability at international level remains to be seen.

Yeah, Ross . . . Roy would have helped. Without him, Oz seem to have a picked a team with one specific goal in mind -- not to give the Flab 4 a winning farewell. We bat deep, if a bit mediocre, and have a lot of bowling options, though again a bit mediocre.

Oz should win 1 test, and will be hard to roll twice unless it's an absolute bunsen.

I would imagine the team for series v the saffies will have a very different look with no Fleas or Watson.

Symonds's loss is huge for Australia. Not only have Australia lost a very good batsman for these conditions but also a vital spinner.

But atleast selectors have sent across a strong message to everyone in Australian squad that no matter what your stature is and how much indispensable you're for the team. If you don't fit into team discipline then you're off.

I do think we've lost something of our aura of invincibility, built mainly around Warne and Gilly as stated above but also the fast scoring of Hayden and Punter. Langer towards the end of his career began chancing his arm and when it came off, he and Hayden together could have demoralised an attack in the first forty minutes.

Zaheer's comments might have smacked of arrogance but maybe are fair enough in the context of Punter's pre-game jibe about the ageing Indians and how we'll play a new age form of cricket that will leave them behind.

The way Katich batted indicated that we went for safety first. Maybe fair enough under the circumstances but we can't have it both ways and say we attack and take scoring rates to new levels unless we put this into practice. Gilly used to but it remains to be seen if we can do it without him, an ageing Hayden and Punter and fewer runs to play with given that our attack is not what it was.

While Katich might have been playing the anchorman, the reality is that India's bowling was depleted. Kumble was injured and well below form anyway, while the turban king never looked particularly threatening. Sehwag bowled some innocuous staff while they only had two seamers sharing the workload.