CricInfo Home
News Home

NEWS FOCUS
Rsa in Pak
NZ in India
Zim in Aus

Domestic
Other Series

THE announcement that Steve Waugh will replace Mark Taylor as captain of Australia was a splendid moment for a reserved man who set out on his road to the Damascus of cricketing achievement during the days when anyone, even England, could beat Australia.

Waugh was the bright young thing of the mid-1980s and was identified ahead of his more gifted twin as a young man who would bring backbone to a weak and unprofessional Australian team. He was, and still is, a man of substance rather than frivolity, a man who could be trusted with the future.

Since that series in 1986-87, when Mike Gatting's tourists won everything they entered, Waugh has been through many a metamorphosis and has now emerged as the most resilient and most reliable Test match batsman in the world. He has an average of 50, for goodness sake, which only serious batsmen manage, and he scores his runs when his men most need them, when the body of the team twitches on the floor.

Now he is trusted with the ultimate sporting responsibility in Australia, the role of guardian and guide of the national sport. Recently John Howard, the prime minister, said that the captaincy of the cricket team was the second most important job in Australia. We take it that he thought his own to be the numero uno, and Steve Waugh, commenting yesterday, took it all rather lightly, saying that plenty of people who work in medicine had far more important jobs than he.

This is Steve Waugh - pragmatic, realistic and honest. He has a different style from Mark Taylor but the same effect - what you see is what you get. Australians tend to bring this straightforwardness to sport and on the whole it serves them and their country well.

Waugh is the flintiest of fellows, but he will not do the job without charm. He will, no doubt, prove to be a fine leader, if more stern and perhaps less imaginative than Taylor - and his uncompromising approach will offer no spare oxygen to his opponent. Surprisingly perhaps, but because he is a bright chap, he will handle the media, which is so much a part of the act these days, better than some suggest.

He was clearly delighted yesterday and had no hesitation in saying so when he went through a mass of interviews before flying back to Sydney to share the fun with his family.

Shane Warne, his obvious rival for the position, has every bit as much charm, and some, but is not so straightforward. At a time when the cricket world in Australia is clawing its way back from the various humiliations of the past month, Waugh was the only option. By all accounts, he waltzed past Warne in the vote taken by the 14 Australian Cricket Board members. This was no great surprise, given his long-term devotion to the cause and his wonderfully clean image.

The selectors have given him an immensely strong team to take to the Caribbean, where they start as clear favourites to repeat their series success of four years ago. The selectors have also had the sense to pre-empt further speculation about who would captain the team for the World Cup by naming Waugh again, assuming his fitness, with Warne as his deputy in both forms of the game.

In deference to Warne, he has led with great flair and innovation during the recent limited-overs series and he may well be formally anointed as captain of Australia in due course. For now, the shoulder injury that kept him out of cricket for nine months and which has given Stuart MacGill a sniff of replacing the great man in the Test team, and his tendency to attract drama and controversy to his everyday life, persuaded the selectors and the board to make him wait for his moment.

Warne may bristle a bit at this but, deep down, he will appreciate that an outstanding man has nipped ahead of him for now.