What do they know of winning who only winning know? Apart from a sharp brain, flexible mind, thick skin and a good batting (or occasionally bowling) average, a great captain must have something else in his CV: he must know what it is to lose. To scale the highest highs, the theory goes, he must first have trawled the lowest lows. Which is why Adam Gilchrist - a central character in Australia's transformation from efficient unit to almost invincibles - could prove his own worst enemy in his quest to become a truly great captain. On the evidence of his two Tests in charge so far, he has some distance to go. His first shot against West Indies in Adelaide last December was as close as Australia went to losing a game all summer. Gilchrist's blushes were eventually saved by Colin Miller's lamb-dressed-as-mutton offies and Damien Martyn's steady nerve. Yesterday's fiasco at Headingley was worse, far worse.

Formidable as Australia are as winners, they make ungainly losers. In the field they are so used to things happening, as if mouthing the lines of some pre-ordained script, that when the wheel stops they become gripped by stagefright. They linger too complainingly with the umpire. They wince a half-second too long when ball beats bat.

Then they start trying too hard. They dive for the impossible catch, only to miss the ball altogether and watch it trickle to the boundary. They try to effect the imaginary run-out, only to concede four overthrows. Gillespie, Lee and even the Warne of today are thunderous shock bowlers but not so well-versed in the art of drying up a batsman's run supply, cutting off his oxygen, enticing error.

Steve Waugh's pre-series pep talk - that he was the only Aussie who had lived through an Ashes defeat and he wasn't about to let it happen again - struck a particularly resonant chord with players and watchers alike. Chappell, Lillee and Marsh all played their first Tests in 1970-71, when Illy's Army ran out winners and Bill Lawry ran out of friends. Border made his debut midway through Australia's 5-1 shellacking in 1978-79. Even Bradman's first Test resulted in a 675-run humbling by Percy Chapman's England. "In the hour of greatest slaughter," the folksy songwriter Paul Kelly has noted, "the great avenger was being born."

What has Brett Lee ever had to avenge? Headingley was his first taste of defeat in 11 Tests and, if 2 for 168 is anything to go by, he didn't like it much. Gillespie has played in nine losing Tests, in which his career average of 23 blows out to 42 and his strike-rate of a wicket every 45 balls balloons to a positively pie-throwing 78. Warne, since his first comeback from injury in January 1999, has played in six losing sides. His output: 13 wickets for 808 runs, strike-rate 105. Captain, we have a problem.

Gilchrist is a gracious, honourable man who may yet become a great leader. His declaration was an admirable act of daring, not a mistake. However, his field placings were too macho for even his own hardy troopers. His under-use of McGrath was curious; his over-use of Lee and Gillespie was unimaginative.

But the real trouble for Gilchrist - whose own average drops from 52 to 4.2 when Australia lose - runs deeper than tactics. The team that know only of winning go to pieces when they are losing. It's nothing that a few more days like Monday won't solve, though.

Chris Ryan is managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly.

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