by bigfluffylemon » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:57 pm
I dunno, I'm rather taking heart by Australia's performance.
Think about where Australia were four years ago. Lost a home Ashes, out in the World Cup quarter final (their worst WC performance since 1983), 5th ranked team in the world at one point, and they'd go on to lose at home to New Zealand and South Africa, and be dismantled overseas by India when players were sent home in disgrace for not doing their homework.
Fast forward two years from that India tour and Australia are world beaters again in all three formats. It's incredible how quickly all that's come together.
Consider Australia's current squad. Of the XV, only four - Clarke, Watson, Haddin and Johnson were central to the Australian team in 2011, and Johnson's confidence was shot after a horrible Ashes and he had quite some time out of the Australian side. Smith was around but no-one rated him as international class. Doherty, Starc and Hazlewood were on the fringes of selection. Warner was a T20 specialist who had been tried and failed miserably in a few ODIs and no-one rated him in the longer formats. Bailey, Maxwell, Faulkner, Cummins, Finch, Marsh were all yet to debut in ODIs when Australia played the World Cup in 2011. From that a squad has come together that looks as though it will be world beating for years to come.
So if Australia can rebuild in less than four years, so can we. It doesn't need us to identify the XV that we'll be taking in four years time now, as many of them have probably still to be discovered. It needs solid plans in place for developing the team over time.