Few Australian defeats have been as embarrassing as the debacle in South Africa.
WHILE comparisons are an odious and over-used tool of modern sports journalism, there's nothing unfair about a relative evaluation of that second innings batting effort in Cape Town. An Australian team - without excuses - that spent a couple of minutes hovering on the brink of the lowest score in Test cricket history, before recovering to the relative respectability of 47, can hardly avoid such analysis.
Despite our proud history on the cricket field, there have been plenty of dark days. Capitulations are nothing new and have always been hard to swallow. The cohort of men under the baggy green is the closest we have to a truly national team. I'm not sure whether the national response is still as it once was, but there was a time when significant Test defeats were felt across the nation as something akin to a death in the family.
"Laker's match" at Old Trafford in 1956, for example, produced a day not unlike last Thursday in Cape Town. Those old enough recall it with horror even now. On the second afternoon, Australia had made a promising start in reply to England's imposing total of 459. Some who were listening that night in Australia speak of contentedly dozing off, bedside radio still going, as Colin McDonald and Jim Burke took their opening partnership close to 50.
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Imagine the shock of waking an hour or so later to the heartening awareness that the same pair were still at the crease, only to learn it was now the second innings! Australia had lost all 10 wickets for 36 to plunge from 48 without loss to 84 all out. Jim Laker at one stage took 7-8 from 22 balls. Then there were the two calamitous seasons of the World Series Cricket split, when Australia was forced to field a second XI and the clattering batting collapse became as common as the summer sound of cicadas. The 1978-79 Ashes series began with a classic: Graham Yallop's first act as captain was to win the toss and bat, Graeme Wood ran out Gary Cosier in the first over of the series, and an hour later the score was 6-26. After that, 116 seemed a not bad first innings score and a seven-wicket defeat an honourable loss.
A couple of years later, Kim Hughes was captain and his 1981 Ashes team suffered two of the most painful defeats in our history. At Headingley, England still trailed by 92 runs at the fall of its seventh second-innings wicket, yet won the match. Australia fell short chasing 130; then fell over again pursuing 151 in the next match at Edgbaston.
Hughes was captain at home in 1985-86 and promised not to hook the West Indies' quicks. The opening Test was in Perth, the tourists made 416, and Australia was precariously placed at 3-36 by the end of the second day.
But the skipper was still there and his commitment to discipline had stoked the embers of hope. All of four runs had been added the following morning when Hughes hooked Michael Holding straight down Malcolm Marshall's throat at long leg.
An hour or so later Australia was all out for 76.
Yes, these were bad days indeed. Yet when all things are considered, Black Thursday of the past week might just have been the worst we've had. Not only was it an abysmal performance, it occurred at a time when Australia's Test cricket effort can least afford it.
When Harold Larwood, Jim Laker, Ian Botham, and the West Indies' express bowlers inflicted pain on Australia, we knew there would always be another day and another season. Right now, even in this country, the clock is ticking for Test cricket and performances such as this are particularly devastating.
This match was played by cricketers whose attention span has been compromised by the emphasis on the comic book form of the game. What other conclusion is to be drawn after Michael Clarke's and Graeme Smith's innings provided such weighty bookends to this procession of self-destruction?
How could Shane Watson, Phil Hughes, Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey, and Brad Haddin score just 39 runs between them in their collective 10 innings? That his players so comprehensively failed to support Clarke after his superb contribution is concerning.
If sporting teams reflect those who oversee their establishment, Clarke's team this week revealed Australian cricket as a shambles. It knows not whether it wants classical or rock'n'roll.
It displays all the philosophical ideals attributed to Don King by Larry Holmes when the former heavyweight champion said of the promoter: "He doesn't care about black or white; he just cares about green."
The game has become a three-ring circus and its highest form is being lost amid the showbiz. The Barnum and Bailey style of the game's promotion has reduced it all to humbug. The frustration of cricket lovers at Australia's performance is, I suspect, not the brooding "we'll get even next time" kind of anger once generated by defeat, rather a confused form of grieving at a larger loss.
