I can’t explain it.

Late last year Australia won the Champions Trophy for the first time, and for the first half of the Commonwealth Bank One Day Series, we were unbeatable. Then we lost to New Zealand, then 3 games in a row to England, and now we’ve been beaten by New Zealand by 10 wickets - the first time Australia has lost by such a margin in one-day internationals.

I can’t explain it.

Perhaps, to re-phrase a famous quote by former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, this is “the form slump we had to have”. Before we can go on to greater things, we have to perform as poorly as we can. The Australian team we learn from this run of losses, and they’ll grow into an even more fearsome squad because of it.

In support of this case I present Exhibit A - The Ashes 2005. On that occasion we experienced injuries to key players, and poor team selection. In this most recent game we were without Ponting, Gilchrist, Lee, Symonds, and Clarke. At least three of those guys should be right for the World Cup, but Symonds and Lee are in doubt. Both of them are key players who are impossible to replace, and their loss may be enough to completely destabilise the Australian XI.

At least, this is what I hope is going on. The other option, of course, is that the rest of the world has finally caught up to Australia and we can’t handle the pressure:

“What the global community try to do is catch up … and look for weaknesses that other teams have exposed.”
- Stephen Fleming

It must be said that the Kiwis played some beautiful cricket in yesterday’s game. Shane Bond took 5 wickets, and Vincent and Fleming blew away all five of Australia’s bowlers. So we can’t say that it’s simply a result of Australia not being able to put a world class team out onto the field (although I think that was a factor).

So, Australia has two more games, and I’m pretty sure they’ll need to win both of them if the want to hold on to top spot on the world rankings. At the moment, though, I think Australia will have to get used to second place, because that’s where they’ll be a week from now.