In the wake of Australia’s record-breaking first Test loss to South Africa, criticism of the team has been pouring in with the viciousness of a golden age WACA pitch – and it’s not done yet.
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With nearly half the squad looking over their shoulders heading into the Hobart Test, cricketing authority Gideon Haigh has questioned the mindset of the Aussies when playing at home.
“We just sort of seemed to have developed this brittle front-runners attitude – we’re great when everything is in our favour but we kind of fold up at the first sign of resistance,” Gideon Haigh said on SEN.
“I think we thought, oh we’re at home now we’ll be right.
“We have this tendency to write-off away Test results, they just sort of take place out of sight during the depths of winter; they’re in hot countries that are far away.
“We tend to write them off and we start getting ready to carve up underprepared and ill-equipped teams at home.
“But we played South Africa in Perth where they’ve made a bit of a habit of winning.”
While capitulations have been overlooked on the subcontinent, at home and against a team missing AB De Villiers and Dale Steyn (for most of the Test, at least) the failure of the top six has been magnified.
“We were beaten by ten men, down their number one bowler and we didn’t even really stretch them,” Haigh said.
“Really we lost it on the second day with our inability to take advantage of probably the best batting conditions in the world at a time when South Africa were at their most vulnerable.”
