Outside noise may fuel Oz in Indore

The Australian cricket teamrsquos midseries report card isnrsquot a sight to behold Further failure is a possibility on such challenging pitches against a wellblended bowling attackOne of the several points of criticism the tourists have copped is their decision not to play a warmup game and I wonder if the repercussions of the decision to opt for nets in Bangalore and not spend match time were factored in before the Australians landed in IndiaHead coach Andrew McDonald has justified the notour game call in his recent utterances even as former captain Michael Clarke and excoach Darren Lehmann believe that it was a blunder Tour games are meant to get a feel of the conditions and not just the pitchesThe loss at Nagpur was followed by another threeday Test in New Delhi To say that the Australians are well and truly on the mat is as obvious as saying that wrestling is a combat sport Apart from dealing with the ignominy of surrendering the BorderGavaskar Trophy to India for the fourth time in a row they have to deal with what modern players call ldquooutside noiserdquoThere is absolutely no shortage of opinions whenever Australian cricket encounters a wave of adversity Their former stars are either contracted with television networks or radio stations and their views get reported by the media In addition to that a lot of their past masters are accessible to the print mediaThe exgreats get stuck in tell it like it is and their captains of bygone eras crack the whip even at the risk of being reminded that they led teams too and had their bad daysAlso Read Stats of the matterWhen Ian Chappell who led Australia from 1971 to 1975 was critical of Kim Hughesrsquos captaincy in the early 1980s he was told by a Hughes supporter that he shouldnrsquot be so hard on the West Australian considering he knew how tough the job was Chappellrsquos response came in the form of a reminder He stressed that firstly he was not the Australian captain and two it was his duty as a commentator and writer to tell his viewersreaders the truthChappell hasnrsquot been diplomatic in Australiarsquos latest crisis No one can accuse him of calling for performances which he didnrsquot accomplish on the subcontinentHe scored 300plus runs in five Tests on the tour of India in 196970 against a spin attack comprising E A S Prasanna B S Bedi S Venkataraghavan It was a series that India lost 13 to Bill Lawryrsquos teamChappell was often asked how Australia managed to beat that strong M A K Pataudiled Indian team He revealed his response on Cricket in the 1970s documentary ldquoBecause we had batsmen who could play spin bowling And we always believed we could win the series because we could make enough runs even though we were facing terrific spinners on pitches that turned a lotrdquoAllan Border too has been blunt in his views on how Pat Cummins amp Co played in Delhi ldquoIrsquom angry about the way they went about it todayrdquo Border told Fox Sports referring to Australiarsquos 611 to 113 all out collapse in the capital on Sunday Border also expressed his ire when he saw Steve Smith appreciate a delivery from Ravindra Jadeja who had just beaten him in the Nagpur TestLike Chappell Border scored plenty of runs in India He plundered 500plus including 162 and 50 at Chennai in the 197980 Test series playing under Hughes When he was captain in the 198687 series he smashed 245 in four innings to average 8167 In his 1986 autobiography Border revealed that he fell ill seven to eight times on the tour despite being most careful about what he ate and drankMark Taylor who took over the Test captaincy from Border in 199495 is appalled over the sweep shots that caused Australiarsquos early demise at New Delhi To him Steve Smith had no business in playing the stroke ldquoThe dismissal that shocked me the most was Steve Smith playing that sweep shot because itrsquos not a shot he plays often That looked a shot of desperation to merdquo Taylor said on 2GBrsquos Wide World of Sports RadioTaylor made two Test tours to Indiamdashin 1996 for the oneoff Test game in New Delhi where the first BorderGavaskar Trophy was held and the 199798 tour which Australia lost 12 to Mohammad Azharuddinrsquos team After scores of 12 13 and 3 Taylor found some touch in the second innings of the second Test at Kolkata where he scored 45 before he was run out Taylor enjoyed playing in front of a large Eden Gardens crowd and wrote in Time to Declare how he wished the result an innings and 219run loss would have been a ldquolittle kinderrdquo He admitted that his team ldquogot their bums kickedrdquo The Aussies regrouped well in the third and final Test at Bangalore and won despite India scoring 424 in their first innings aided by Tendulkarrsquos 177 Taylor led the way with a second innings 102 chasing 194 after India were dismissed for 169 in their second inningsldquoI finished on a neat 102 not out a most satisfying personal conclusion to a tour in which we had been had been beatenmdashbut had shown fighting qualities against the odds at the endrdquo Taylor wroteThe opinions of the above three captains are not only aligned with logic they have scored runs in this part of the worldIn the midst of criticism and ridicule the Australians must try and pick out some aspects of the tough talk spoken by their erstwhile achievers and indulge in some soulsearching There is little to be gained by totally ignoring the opinion giversSome of the outside noise can be useful for Indore Pun very much intendedmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stanceHe tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper