ICC Champions Trophy 2013: Can Bailey do a "Brearley" ?

“Although the punishment for David is quite harsh, that’s the reality when you play for the Australian cricket team. The culture we are trying to set up here, you need to make sure you are doing the right things.”

A grumpy Michael Clarke sat beside David Warner and tried his best to put up a brave face at the press conference that followed just hours after the disciplinary committee suspended the Australian opening batsman until the Ashes and slapped a hefty fine for being involved in a pub brawl with the English cricketer Joe Root.

A white wash in India, the homework scandal, pub brawls, twitter rants and now hanging by the thread in the Champions Trophy – in the last few months, nothing much has swung the Australian’s way. Their on-field performances haven’t inspired much confidence and their off-field charades and behavior have starkly resembled to that of disillusioned college kids rather than professional cricketers, leaving the entire team red-faced.

“What’s the matter with the Aussies?” - A question that has been doing the rounds of the cricket world for some time now. The bowling looks malnourished, the batting listless and the fielding jaded but the most disappointing aspect of men in yellow and green has been their display of intensity or rather the lack of it. The shoulders droop, the chins go down and the players fold too easy during the crunch.

According to the stand-in captain George Bailey, “We couldn’t get any momentum and it was the batting which let us down.”

True, batting has been Australia’s major problem since the retirement of Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey. If the series against India floated the chinks to the surface, the warm-up games before the Champions Trophy exposed its fragility. They edged past the West Indies riding a Shane Watson ton but faced humiliation against India where the entire team put on chopping display that would have made Gordon Ramsey proud.

However, there’s a bigger crisis that the Aussies need to fix to arrest their free fall – the leadership. Over the years, Australia has been a very dangerous team to be pitted against. They not only won Championships, they destroyed oppositions. They massacred their oppositions with outstanding performances and bullied them into submission with their incessant verbal intimidation. Apart from their star batsmen and the lethal bowlers, the most potent weapon that adorned the repertoire of an Australia captain was mental disintegration. They mastered the art and stripped off the oppositions of their confidence and paralysed them with self doubt to enforce a complete demolition job.

However, that’s a story of the past. This present Australian squad is in a transition phase and is fighting hard to keep their heads above water. But to see through a successful transition, a team requires a managerial staff that’s well equipped to pull the right strings – a selection committee that identifies the players, a coach who guides them in the correct direction and a captain who keeps the team together.

The biggest weakness of this Australian team is its feeble leadership. Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm but in turbulent times you need a man with strong hands, a calm mind and clarity in vision. In team Australia, Michael Clarke, Mickey Arthur and George Bailey don’t seem to have any of the above. Michael Clarke’s back is too fragile to carry the team, Mickey Arthur is more concerned with homework submissions and George Bailey doesn’t look like a man-in-charge.

The Australian cricket team, through the generations, has always been blessed with great talent. But even when the talent quotient hasn’t been greatest, they have been led by men who not only had a strong hold on their sides, but also a stranglehold on the opposition. Incidents like Warner had happened earlier too, but they had leaders like Allan Border and Steve Waugh, who, stood like rocks in front of their teams to deal with the extra -curricular activities of Dean Jones, Andrew Symonds and Shane Warne. They took charge of the situation and motivated their teams to the convert the scandalous headlines into accolades with awe inspiring performances.

This time, things are a little different. With Clarke out of action, the reins of the team have been handed to George Bailey. He is one of those rare cricketers who were picked to lead an International side on debut. In the ODIs, with an average hovering around 45 and a strike-rate in the 80s, he is currently the best batsman of the side and with Shane Watson giving up on vice-captaincy, he seems a solid and a safe choice.

And that’s where the Aussies are suffering. This is the first time that the Australians have selected the captain first and then the team and when that starts to happen, the “out of stock” signage on the talent reservoir becomes even more prominent. Bailey has done his bit. He has hit back to back fifties, has made the correct moves and has selected the correct eleven. But is that enough to lead an Australian side?

Though he has been in fine touch, his knocks have hardly created an impact in the team’s success. His best essays with the bat have come in losing causes and the pace at which he bats hasn’t set the world on fire. He has never been prolific in the Sheffield Shield nor will any of the IPL teams ever go overboard with a bid for him. But to be fair to Bailey, he doesn’t have the team either. Mediocrity has been thrust upon him. The Baggy Green seems too heavy for most in the squad and fighting for its pride is a task that’s looks beyond their realm. They lack the grit, are too soft on the field and deliver their knock-out punches only in the pubs.

Right now, the Australian team needs a leader more than a captain and they need him like never before. They need someone who will go out of his way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. Someone who will push the team to its limit, grab them by the scruff of their neck, make them stare into the eyes of the opponent and bring back the swagger that smelt of arrogance from every inch.

According to Shane Warne, the Warner issue will re-unite the team. It would have, if they had someone like a Ponting or a Waugh in charge who would have spurred on the team to turn the controversy into magical performances. Sadly, this team doesn’t have someone who can achieve that. Bailey is good, not great, but he is the best that they have got and the Australian selectors have pinned their hopes on him to pull off a “Brearly”. Can he do it? It’s the best time to pull out the age old cliché - “Only time will tell!”