Perspective needed in World Cup quest

With the one-day World Cup now the primary focus and most coveted trophy of every cricket nation, and the preparation for the event seemingly beginning as the soon as the previous one ends, loss of form by teams or players in the largely inconsequential lead-up matches and tournaments is now being greeted with increasing hysteria.

The eighth World Cup in southern Africa is still a year away, a long time in any sport, but the likes of England, Australia, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa and others have had it in mind for some time already. For all but one team, years of planning is going to end in despair and crushing disappointment, and for an example of how seriously an immaculate preparation is being taken you need only look at the reaction to champions Australia's three successive defeats to start the annual tri-series Down Under last week.

A few weeks after Australia destroyed South Africa in the Test series 3-0, and three ODI defeats later, it was suddenly realised that Steve Waugh can't captain, his brother can't bat, the rotation policy Australia has utilised for the last two years should be abandoned forthwith, the middle order needs revamping and fresh blood is required. In short, Australia needed a complete overhaul, with an eye to the World Cup on the horizon.

Granted, change is almost always resisted, and the overhaul which set Australia on the path to success at the last World Cup was also dramatic and controversial. When the time comes to replace leaders and senior players with new faces, it likely will not be with their full blessing. However, while always bearing the future in mind, it is still important not to mistake momentary poor form for a fundamental failure of philosophy and personnel, which is what critics have done to some degree.

Before campaigning for a change to the structure of any team, it must be carefully considered whether results are an indication of the future, or merely show a lapse in the present. This requires a sense of perspective that is in danger of becoming skewed by measuring success or failure by World Cup campaigns.

This kind of over-reaction occurs in two ways. Firstly there is the loss of focus on the big picture, as defeats which happen partially as a result of experimentation for the Cup are ironically interpreted as an indication that planning for the event has gone awry, causing undue calls for modification.

The second is that because of the unspoken emphasis placed on the tournament itself, failure of a perfectly good team to win the trophy could cause unwarranted upheaval at the expense of Test development. With distinctions being made between the two forms of the game, that is less likely to happen now, but the importance of progress at Test level in comparison to performance at a quadrennial one-day tournament must be kept in perspective.

To return specifically to the recent Australian example, closer inspection of the home team's precarious start to the one-day series revealed only a team in need of fine-tuning, not a new engine. What was impossible to accept was not the criticism of the mediocre performances but of the philosophy in place.

Australia first instituted what has become known as the rotation policy two seasons ago and it has always been viewed with some scepticism. It is just one of the innovations of the Waugh/Buchanan leadership liaison, as they seek to build a squad of players, rather than just an XI, who are equally proficient and prepared to perform when required. This way, they maintain, should Australia suffer any injuries before or during the World Cup, they will not have to call upon reserve players who have neither the experience nor confidence to immediately be effective replacements.

This seems to be the reason why Waugh appears uncomfortable answering questions about Australia's "best XI" in one-day cricket, as he clearly intends to build a squad where there is no such thing. Whether it is called rotation or maximising the abilities of the talent pool, it is not dissimilar to a pitching rotation in American Major League baseball or the resting of players by Europe's elite football clubs, and is quite obviously a sign of progress. The policy should lead not only to a squad of better players in the long-term but also prevent fatigue injuries.

On the flip side, the main concern with the rotation policy, and the one which so irks its critics, is when Australia loses matches with a team not seen to be its best XI, which has happened in New Zealand and India in the last two years. It is claimed, or at least should be if fully articulated, that the benefits to be gained by playing reserve players for an occasional match are outweighed by the detrimental affect of upsetting the balance of the side and the form of the players themselves.

While valid, that argument is not the fault of the policy per se, but rather the way it has been recently employed, which is where a clear distinction needs to be made. The interchange of batsmen in Australia's first four matches was not managed smoothly enough to ensure the players concerned actually benefited.

Matthew Hayden hardly had a stable environment in which to prove himself when selected for his team's second and fourth matches without knowing whether he would be picked for the next. Ian Harvey played two of the first three games before making way for Andrew Symonds, while Damien Martyn moved up from six to four.

In Australia's three losses, its batting was largely responsible, scores of 176, 198 and 212 not helped by the alternating line-ups. Improvement was already underway in making 241 in game four against South Africa, before blitzing the Proteas again with a first-choice team.

After dropping Hayden from the squad and selecting the best batsmen for the last game, it has been dubiously claimed that the Aussie selectors have abandoned the rotation policy. Rather, they have returned to implementing it prudently, with batsmen first given a chance to establish form before being substituted. The bowlers will still be rested when required.

If anything, Australia hurt itself in the initial matches by being spoilt for choice, unable to decide upon its immediate future due to multitude of options and fielding an unsettled line-up as a consequence. The answer is what has now been adopted, a judicious system of rotation whereby players will spend more successive matches in the team before sitting out. That way, there is an opportunity to build form without being concerned by the possibility of being rotated out of the next match.

All that is left then is the minor matter of continuing to win matches. The quality of the opposition has an oft-overlooked part to play in that regard, but with a more consistent policy and the necessary improvement in form achieved, Australia should again contest the cigarettes-and-beer finals. If they do not, the World Cup is still 12 months away, with the right perspective hopefully much nearer at hand.

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