‘I think they stack up very, very highly’: Mark Waugh on the dominance of Australian Test team | Cricket News
With the current Australian cricket team now holding every bilateral series trophy against all Test playing nations, the Pat Cummins’ team will be eying to win the World Test Championship final against South Africa later this year. After winning the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 3-1 with a win in the final Test at Sydney last week, the Australian team won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time since 2014 and former Australian cricketer Mark Waugh believes the team ‘stack up very, very highly’.
“I think they stack up very, very highly – this group of players. Individually, there’s some fantastic players there. I think Steve Smith is going to stack up as one of our great batsmen, definitely. His record speaks for itself. David Warner’s just retired. Then you’ve got world class players like (Usman) Khawaja and Travis Head. The bowling side of it, I think the group of bowlers is as good as we’ve ever produced. The three big fast bowlers —Starc, Hazlewood, Cummins — Nathan Lyon’s record is phenomenal. I think they stack up very, very favourably,” Waugh told news.com.au.
Australia have not lost an Ashes series against England since 2015 in the last four series. England have not won a single Test match in Australia since 2011. Prior to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Waugh had shared his views about the importance of Australia winning the BGT, the only missing link in the last one decade for Australia. “I guess the one area they’ve let themselves down is (not) beating India in the last four series. That’s probably one area where they would like to improve. And drawing the Ashes series last year. They retained the Ashes but probably the really great Australian teams would have won that Ashes series. There’s a couple of big moments they haven’t nailed, and they’d be the first to admit that, but I think generally speaking any of the players would hold their own in any great Australian team of the past,” Waugh had told news.com.au. in November.
While Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah took 32 wickets in the five-match series, Mohammad Siraj was the only other Indian bowler in the top five highest wicket takers in the series. Australian skipper Pat Cummins took 25 wickets while Scott Boland finished with 21 wickets in the series. Mitchell Starc took 18 wickets in the series including his career-best figures of 6 for 48 in Adelaide, a Test which Australia won ten wickets. Starc now has 376 wickets in 94 Tests. Former Australian bowler Breet Lee counted Starc as one of Australia’s greatest bowlers.
“He will go down as one of Australia’s greatest bowlers ever in all formats. That can be said about all three of the quicks. Pat Cummins is a superstar, Hazlewood is unbelievable. I think they enhance each other’s performances as well. In terms of Mitchell Starc, it’s not often you see a left-armer who’s tall, lean, beautiful approach to the crease and he can shape the ball back in so late. I think of the first ball of the Test series against England at the Gabba, I think about (Brendon) McCullum at the (2015 ODI) World Cup – swung it back. They are balls where people go ‘oh that was a fluke or it just happens’. He practices that ball day in day out. Under pressure he can execute. He’s now approaching 400 wickets, amazing. Incredible.” Lee told news.com.au.
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