Tuesday, March 26, 2002 The saddest Australian summer of the last 25 years, the black season of 1984-85, involved a press conference, a box of tissues and a memorable parting shot. "The constant speculation, criticism and innuendo from former players and sections of the media," croaked a forlorn Kim Hughes, "have finally taken their toll."

Seventeen years on and the spectre of Michael Slater's disintegration - first of his confidence, then of his technique, and finally of his humour - brings it all back. Slater, at least, has retained the sympathy and affection of the playing fraternity. Just as well, for the media lynch-mob hounding his every indiscretion has resembled a pack of camp-dogs slavering over a slowly rotting bone.

They were there, watching and waiting, as Slater failed to reach 50 in 15 out of 16 innings for New South Wales. They were there in the new year when he was dropped from the state's one-day side, and then again three weeks later when he was dumped from the four-day side. They were there, at a tranquil suburban ground, when he made his comeback innings in Sydney's first-grade competition and was hit on the head by a teenage fast bowler. As he stalked off, blood trickling over the bridge of his nose and down his mouth and chin, Slater threw his helmet in the direction of a photographer and snapped at the baying hacks: "There's some news for you, you pricks." It was hard to feel anything but sorry for him.

It was hard to feel anything but happy for him a month later when he returned to the NSW side as captain. He belted 10 fours in an innings of 50, ending his sorry saga on the happy note that Kim Hughes never quite managed. Or so it seemed. The sections of the media, with whom Hughes had become so familiar 17 years earlier, offered nothing but criticism, saw only innuendo. "He rode his luck," tut-tutted Slater's hometown paper, the Sydney Morning Herald. His innings, the paper claimed, was laced with "streaky edges" and a "miscued pull", before finishing with an lbw decision that "clearly irked him" and had him "trudging off". Words like triumph, courage, resilience, pride and sticking-it-up-the-bastards came to mind, but were nowhere to be seen.

It was the wretchedly drawn-out nature of the whole Slater business that made the summer of 2001-02, which officially ended today, the second saddest of the last 25 years. The most bizarre aspect of it was the way we watched events unfold from a distance. Slater's axing from the Test side, based on a selectorial hunch that he was partying too hard and gripping his bat handle the same way, happened when he was seemingly in reasonable nick. As a result, his drip-by-drip decline took place not on the international stage but in the unwatched wasteland of the Pura Cup, broadcast only by obscure cable-TV channels. Instead of seeing him crash and burn in our living rooms we followed his fading fortunes furtively, like voyeurs, tuning into ball-by-ball internet commentaries, snatched TV news grabs and tantalising newspaper reports, where a single digit in the scorecard hinted at so much more.

The fall of Hughes was altogether briefer and more public. His final six innings for Australia in 1984-85, spread across two Tests and two one-day internationals, lasted 1, 7, 2, 1, 3 and 14 balls respectively for scores of 0, 2, 0, 0, 0 and 1. Picked for one last Sharjah junket, Hughes batted twice, hitting 14 and 11. And that was that. Australian cricket's least anonymous modern batsman bowed out in contemporary cricket's most anonymous setting.

This was the same golden-haired golden boy who had finished in the top three of Australia's batting averages for five of the previous six home summers, and who had averaged one epic knock a year: the watercolour masterpieces of the 1980 Centenary Test; the streetfighting 100 not out against West Indies in 1981-82; the Ashes-saving 137 at Sydney in 1982-83; and the face-saving 106 against Pakistan's Abdul Qadir at Adelaide in 1983-84.

If Hughes was undermined by the carping of former players like Ian Chappell, he was destroyed by the pick-and-miss policy of Ian's brother Greg. Whenever Greg Chappell did not fancy touring - to India in 1979-80, England in 1981, Pakistan in 1982-83 and the World Cup in 1983 - Hughes found himself the rookie, interim captain of a team missing their greatest batsman. The final blow came when Chappell retired on the eve of 10 straight Tests against Clive Lloyd's West Indians. Hughes survived for seven as captain, and for nine as a player. In retrospect he did well to last that long.

Slater, unlike Hughes, is not swimming against a tide of ill-will. Unlike Hughes, Slater's glittering moments have been fewer and farther between of late - though his 18 runs off Darren Gough's opening over of the last Ashes series, and his spellbinding 123 out of 184 in the previous one, still cause palpitations. It may follow, then, that his scars are less deep, his prospects of salvation more realistic. It may be that one day he will open the batting again for Australia. But he will need a thick skin, a broad bat and - the biggest imponderable of all, this - either Matthew Hayden or Justin Langer to go off the rails.

Hughes has popped up semi-regularly lately, appearing in magazine articles, TV panels and the like. He has seemed upbeat, jovial even, a different man from the shadowy, haunted figure of past years, a man at ease with himself and his place in history. Let's hope we can say the same thing one day about Michael Jonathon Slater.

Chris Ryan is former managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age.

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