Wednesday, January 16, 2002 When you are at the top there is only one way to go. Maintaining your supremacy is the best that you can hope for and sooner or later it all starts going wrong. The one-day defeats by New Zealand and South Africa are a wake-up call for Australia and it is a long time since they have been under pressure at home. Their self-belief will be shaken and their opponents have realised that the world's best team is vulnerable. The question is: how will Australia respond to the early setbacks?

If they are honest, Australia will ask themselves some serious questions about their strategy. Despite all their success in the one-day game in recent years I believe that their selection is fundamentally flawed. Australia's bowling plan is too reliant on allrounders, which makes it very difficult for them to defend small totals. They should pick more out-and-out bowlers, otherwise wickets can be hard to come by.

You might wonder how they have got away with this for so long. There are several reasons:

1 The batsmen have been virtually faultless in recent years, either chasing or setting a target. This makes life much easier for the fill-in bowlers. The sheer weight of runs creates enough pressure for them to take wickets. Now that Australia's batting machine has started misfiring, the fill-in bowlers aren't enough of a threat.

2 Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne have been on top of their game for several years. Their penetration has also taken the pressure off the fill-in bowlers. But again, now that these two are looking less incisive, the rest of the bowling is exposed.

3 The conditions in England help Australia's medium-pace support bowlers. Hence their success in the 1999 World Cup and last year's one-day triangular tournament. Australian conditions, by contrast, are not kind to trundlers.

4 While Australia have produced a consistently high level of performance, the other international teams, except possibly South Africa, have failed to mount a serious challenge either because they have been too weak or failed to play to their potential.

5 This consistency has also given them a psychological advantage. Most teams think they are beaten before they step onto the field instead of focusing on Australia's weaknesses, such as their support bowling.

The rest of the tournament will be a real test for Australia. But it is better that this wake-up call happens now rather than in South Africa next year. It will be interesting to see how they respond and whether or not they strengthen their bowling. You would expect them to come through it, of course — they have the experience.

Even so, changes will have to be made, this year or next. Most of the team is well over 30, and the squad players are not exactly youngsters. Time looks like catching up with Australia before the rest of the world does.

Javed Miandad, Pakistan's most prolific batsman and later their coach, was talking to Kamran Abbasi.

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