The Waugh Brothers turn 45

In a couple of hours from now, the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, turn 45. Some snippets about “Tugga”, some of which are taken from his autobiography Out of my Comfort Zone.

Waugh Brothers

* An interesting fact about the Waugh brothers is that they are not two, as commonly believed, but four. The third is Dean Waugh who played first class cricket for New South Wales while the fourth is Daniel Waugh, who did not progress beyond NSW club cricket.

* “You’ve dropped the Cup, mate” is what is commonly believed to be Waugh’s sneer at Gibbs during the 1999 World Cup. What Waugh actually said was “You’ve dropped the match”. Throughout the book, Waugh speaks about not thinking too much into the future and focus only on the present. There was no way he would have assumed that Gibbs’ drop in the Super Six match would mean Australia would finally cruise to the final and win the cup. The myth remains uncleared till today as the media normally ignores first-hand reports.

* During the 2001 tour of India, Waugh is believed to have taken a similar dig at Sourav Ganguly. When the latter dropped a catch at short leg, he was met with a jibe “You’ve dropped the Test, mate”. This, Ganguly says, spurred him and his team and the rest is history. Just before retirement, Ganguly expressed that he sometimes thought of Waugh when he walked in to bat.

* Waugh has never shied away from praising players whom he sees as potential international stars. Matthew Hayden was considered by Waugh to be a player who had the ability to average 50 in Test cricket and he has now ended up with 50.67. Shaun Marsh impressed the Waugh brothers when he scored his maiden first class century in 2003 for Western Australia. A knock of 212 by David Hussey during a chase of 455 during the 2003-04 season earned the praise of Waugh, who was captaining NSW then.

* Though Waugh was the one who advocated mental disintegation of the opposition, there were times when he himself had no control when his players overdid it. Glenn McGrath sledging Ramnaresh Sarwan in the 2003 Test series is a case in point. Waugh says it happened all of a sudden, in a flash, while he was setting the field and by the time he could realise what transpired between the two, it was all over.

* In a recent interview with Cricinfo, Waugh shared an interesting fact that Matthew Hayden’s idea of using the mongoose bat came from Waugh’s son who got it as a present from Stuart Law who was the first international cricketer to use it.

* In the same interview, he singled out players like Steven Smith, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Usman Khawaja and James Pattinson as Australian players to watch out for in the future. Khawaja, he says, has a good chance to wear the baggy green cap in the next one year.

* Off the field, Waugh’s charity work is recognised everywhere and his regular visits to India for fund collection get good media coverage. It is said that charity begins at home but for Waugh, it began in Kolkata in 2001. After the defeat to India in 2001, he was approached by members of Udayan, a home for differently abled children, to pay a visit. That visit changed things for him and went a long way in setting up the Steve Waugh Foundation.

* On his vision for the future, Waugh has been full of optimism about the survival of all three formats of the game. He regards the Champions League T20 as a platform to bring out the best in the Australian domestic teams and is impressed with the Indian Premier League as well, where he has been approached by the Kochi franchise for a technical consultant role.

* He describes the relationship with his twin Mark as ‘Siamese’ in that he was always around. So deep was the affection that Steve felt totally different when he took the field for a Test in 2002 and found his twin missing.

At Sportskeeda, let us salute one of the greatest captains in the history of the game and the greatest cricketing brothers ever.