Steve Waugh was a firm believer in what he called "mental disintegration" as a means of upsetting the opposition © Getty Images

At a time when Australian cricket is going through a bit of a soul-searching period, it is a good time to ask some questions about the long-term health (viability) of a sport like cricket in a country that, unlike the subcontinent, has many competitors for hearts and minds. The Australian Sports Commission have commissioned a report into sport that was highlighted in the Weekend Australian yesterday. Revealingly, the headline is entitled "Ugly truth of Australian sport" and the synopsis paints an interesting, perhaps even disturbing, picture of the landscape of sport in this country, especially in relation to the juniors who are at the at the very heart of our long-term future.

Specifically in relation to cricket, the report suggests that 97% of cricketers have experienced sledging at some point in their careers. Whilst past generations of Australian cricketers, even at club level, have shown a cultural tendency to view sledging as an entirely normal part of the cricketing experience, I am not so sure that this indifference will continue into the next generation with the same casual shrug of the shoulders and the promise of a beer afterwards in the change rooms.

Well, to begin with, it is now increasingly the case (in the cities anyway) that cricketers rarely tend to sit in the dressing room for hours afterwards, sipping a beer or three in their jocks and swapping tall stories, jokes and local cricketing folklore. The young lads that I play with (and against) tend to switch on their mobile phones as soon as they enter the change rooms after play and make immediate plans to meet friends at another location. I cannot think of the last occasion when they even stayed long enough to have a shower after the game. It's the modern style of social interaction and I have no issue with it but it is a significant shift away from the 'dressing room culture' that has long been a part of club cricket in Australia (perhaps elsewhere too). Perhaps bush/country/regional cricket still enjoys that sort of old-fashioned camaraderie where it becomes slightly easier to embrace the notion of "what happens on the field stays on the field". That philosophy has long been at the cornerstone of the Australian defence of sledging and until recently, that has generally been a system that has worked.

I have an inkling that this culture is about to change sometime soon and I suspect Cricket Australia will need to have their finger on the pulse to monitor this changing heartbeat and design a system that can cope with this cultural shift. To be fair, most of the cricketing authorities are already aware of the need to create a slightly less hostile environment for cricket, as evidenced by numerous 'spirit of cricket' type programs being implemented at the grass roots level. One local competition near Brisbane even has a 'red card, yellow card' type system to deal with verbal abuse and other unpleasantries. In its infancy, these programs are still more symbolic than anything else - I haven't seen anything (yet) to suggest that the umpires or administrators are enforcing these rules to any great extent but at least they are aware of the need to move with the times and have started moving in the right direction. Major cultural shifts like this take time and cannot be expected to happen overnight.

Anyone who has followed my blogs will know that I have always argued a consistent position against sledging, verbal abuse, mental disintegration etc so there's nothing new in my opinion on this issue. Previously, I have copped a lot of flak for being out of touch with the generation of cricketers I played with and to be fair, I have to concede that generally speaking, I was in the minority. I was often out of step with the general consensus that sledging was simply part of the game and that it was merely another tactic to get the better of your opposition with no malice intended. I'll stick to my guns and state my view that I think it's unnecessary and in poor taste but prepared to accept that I was outvoted in my era.

But the times they-are-a-changin' and I predict that Australian cricket will no longer be able to tolerate those frontier-style views of manhood in the politically correct, harassment-free, litigious and 'mum-power' driven junior sport culture that will soon graduate to men's cricket. For one thing, there are a lot more young cricketers from Asian families who are coming through the system. You've only got to read the cricket scores in the Sunday newspapers to see that trend emerging and generally speaking (and I am generalising here), those families are less accustomed to the traditions of "whatever happens on the field, stays on the field". As we saw when Brad Hogg referred to an Indian cricketer as a "bastard" and caused some offence, what is generally a low-level insult to some people can be escalated to a much higher plane to another person. We can beat about the bush all we like but that is the new reality of cricket in Australia, perhaps also in England, New Zealand and South Africa.

Family values too are now much changed from the culture that cricket flourished throughout the Ian Chappell, Allan Border, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting eras. Mothers are now playing much more prominent roles in deciding what sports their sons play, and this will have an impact on what behaviours they are prepared to tolerate from/to their boys. I can only speak from my experience as a parent/coach/manager in junior sport (cricket and rugby union) and from the many interactions I have with other parents, there is a definite paradigm shift in the powerful and influential roles that mothers play. The mothers I speak to simply don't understand the macho posturing that tends to excuse verbal abuse as a tactical ploy. Not used to the 'what happens on the field stays on the field' sort of excuses that men tend to hide behind, women (and an increasing number of men in the circles I move in) are questioning whether they want their sons growing up in an environment that condones this naked verbal aggression.

Again, I can only speak for myself and for the groups that I am involved in but we've had many conversations about what defines the new style of manhood that we want for our sons. We spend all week trying to get our young boys to behave in certain ways, use their manners, respect women/authority, not say anything that is unkind/cruel/hurtful and it would be utterly counter-productive for us to then encourage them to play a sport that promotes this as an essential ingredient to success.

As a group of parents, we are concerned about a society that has an increasing drug, alcohol and associated violence problem. We want our children, especially male children, to grow up in a world that is a bit more genteel and less prone to aggression and domestic violence. It's not necessarily a moral position - we just want them to be safe. The following excerpt from the aforementioned newspaper article summarises the issue:

"Verbal abuse -- mostly by players, spectators and parents -- was dissuading volunteers, and seen to be reflective both of the individuals themselves and of society generally. Sledging by players, and even spectators, was taking the fun out of sport, and was attributed to the culture of sport in Australia as well as the individuals themselves. Almost every cricketer surveyed -- 97 per cent -- had experienced sledging."

So why would we allow our sons to play a sport that runs counter to every other message every other minute of the day? I never want to hear my son swearing at an umpire or opposition player, I never want to hear him telling the opening batsmen that he's going to "knock his head off" and I never want to hear him laugh about the fact that he got the better of someone because he needled him about his weight, colour, sister's virginity etc. If that happens in my family, I will remove him from that sport and find some other activity to engage him in. And that's the new environment that I think Australian cricket administrators are going to have to contend with when designing long-term plans for the future of cricket for a generation of cricketers, some of whom haven't even been born yet!

Talent cycles come and go. It has been ever thus. We've lost the Ashes in 2011 but we'll get it back again sometime soon. The more salient issue will focus on whether cricket (and sport in general) can re-invent itself to appeal to a new world that still wants to win at all costs but somehow wants to do it without the aggro. I love the fact that more women now control that family dynamic because my wife (and the other significant females in my life) has already changed me for the better. When I come home and recount tales of sledging from the cricket field, my wife gives me sort of quizzical look that shrivels me and makes me feel like a little boy again. It's a silent look of scorn and pity that reminds me that my behaviour a few hours ago would not be out of place in a kindergarten.

With more single mums and females making decisions around sport, cricket will need to appeal to that market if it wants to retain a mass audience of young boys who will need mum's permission to keep playing the game. Otherwise, as the numbers filter through junior sport and the pyramid effect continues to narrow the funnel, through sheer weight of numbers, we'll never keep pace with the juggernaut that is already India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

This report by the Sports Commission indicates that these issues are indeed a real concern for sport administrators in Australia. The Minister for Sport was even moved to comment that "we need to urge the general community to take a tougher standard against inappropriate behaviour". Be the change that you want to be Minister - perhaps you can convince your fellow politicians to show us the way forward with their daily behaviour in Parliament!

The sight of players getting on-field treatment has become a regular feature of modern-day cricket © Getty Images

A month away from the start of the World Cup, with no clear favourite emerging and all squads announced, I'm throwing out the form book and looking at the list of 'support staff'. I'm starting to favour the Contrarian Theory that the squad with the least medical staff, specialised fitness regimes and massage therapists will end up victorious. They might be the only team left standing!

The recent spate of injuries in the Australia and England sides is utterly baffling for two teams whose cricketers are totally full-time professionals. They have no other jobs, their every movement is monitored by a coterie of medical experts, their diets are specified by nutritionists and a team of masseurs work on their tender muscles all day long. They wear the latest in compression clothing, they wallow in ice baths, sports drinks are consumed by the gallon and yet … they keep finding new ways to miss games and new injuries. Has there ever been a more precious generation of cricketers who do nothing else with their lives except look after their bodies and yet are arguably the least 'fit' players of all time?

I'm not referring to 'fitness' in terms of their ability to run marathons or break records in an exercise physiology sense. I'm sure their fitness levels, as measured by machines and PhD students, would put the rest of us to shame. Yet, even humble club cricketers like myself manage to get through many seasons of cricket without so much as a single massage or gym session, without missing a game with an injury to a muscle that we didn't even know we possessed.

We get through our allotted overs comfortably, even without constant sports drinks, showers at lunch-time and changes of clothing. We arrive at a game with barely enough time to warm-up, having already umpired at junior cricket, mowed the lawn at home and made our own soggy sandwiches. When the ball gets smacked past the boundary, something I have become quite an expert on when bowling, I have to chase it all the way to its resting place, quite often in a dense clump of reeds that doubles as home to a family of irritated brown snakes. No boundary hoardings or ball boys to ensure the ball gets returned immediately.

Cricketers like me are hardly very talented, nor are we deemed particularly fit, but year after year, week after week, why is it that we don't seem to suffer the same ratio of injuries that modern cricketers do as a matter of routine. And it's not even my job anymore!

I speak slightly tongue-in-cheek because I know that professional cricketers these days have a higher workload and, of course, that puts more pressure on their fragile bodies, but I still think that they are now like Formula One cars that are capable of ridiculous levels of performance but utterly useless on normal streets. It's almost as if their bodies are now so protected and highly tuned that the slightest bump in the road damages a muscle group that the rest of us don't even have.

For a group of professional 'workers' whose sole occupation is to look after their bodies (with an army of medical experts to assist them), they seem to have a remarkable propensity to be unable to turn up to work fit and healthy. If the rest of the working population, many of whom have to endure hard manual labour or do extra jobs after work (unlike the cricketers who rarely have to mow their own lawns, hang out their laundry, do the grocery shopping or mop the bathroom floor), are as fragile as the modern-day cricketer, our national productivity would be shot to pieces.

How does Shaun Tait manage to injure himself when he's only bowling two-over long spells?
© Getty Images

I'm not referring to the freak Nathan Hauritz type accident where he lands awkwardly on his shoulder. These things can happen to anyone; likewise Ricky Ponting's broken finger. But how does Kevin Pietersen pull a groin muscle on the way to getting a first ball duck? Why does Shaun Tait (who claimed to be as fit as at any point in his career) hobble off with a muscle strain in the middle of his third spell; spells of only two overs each mind you!!! He's a professional athlete whose body is his livelihood and he can't be used in spells longer than two overs without breaking down? How does the medical staff justify that sort of 'preparation' in their KPI's? Imagine if a mechanic prepared a motor vehicle that could not be driven for any more than two laps without a break?

Tim Bresnan can't get through a ten-over spell - a normal day at the 'office' - without pulling a calf muscle. Is anyone holding the athlete or the medical staff responsible for putting out players on the park who are not able to get through a standard day's work without breaking down with the most basic injuries? Were they not warmed up properly, were their muscles not capable of performing standard tasks, did they not have enough sports liquids in their system to prevent cramping/dehydration/muscle fatigue? With all these 'experts', is anyone held accountable?

Their fitness levels are so poor that they cannot bowl 50 overs in the allotted time, despite having refreshments rushed out to them at the fall of every wicket. On Sunday, we had the ridiculous sight of a wicket falling in the first over of the match in Sydney and drinks being taken to the players during that break in play. Bowlers who've been told that they are about to start a bowling spell are unable to get warmed up in time to start their spell without delay - instead, they wait till they get to the top of their mark and then do more stretches and bowl a few warm-up deliveries to the fielder while the captain needs more time to adjust his field, despite memorising the computer-generated field placing for that batsman. And, clearly, it still doesn't stop them from getting injured.

Yes, they will argue that they train a lot more and there are a lot more demands on their body, but isn't that just a part of their chosen careers? They fly business class, they stay in five-star hotels, they have the best equipment and medical treatment that money can buy, they arrive at the ground hours before the start of play to warm up, they have ice baths and massages after play to help them recover as best they can. And yet, despite all of this, they still seem to be breaking down at a much higher rate than professional cricketers of yesteryear. Or else, they have a lower pain threshold and cannot (or are not allowed to) play through minor niggles. Maybe carrying their cheque books put undue strain on their tender bodies!

For that reason alone, I fear for Australia's World Cup campaign. Their bowling attack is liable to fall apart at any time with just about every bowler having missed long periods of cricket in the last 12 months with injury or fitness issues. Playing in the subcontinent in February and March will sorely test their fitness levels, especially now that we know that no amount of ice baths, sports drinks or exercise physiologists have any real impact on their ability to not get injured.

Many of their batsmen are carrying recent injuries (Ponting, Hussey, Clarke, Haddin, Marsh) and it's not going to get much easier in Chennai, Chittagong or Colombo. If the old rules of ODI cricket were reinstated, where teams who failed to bowl their 50 overs in the allotted time only received the number of overs that they had bowled at the prescribed finish time, Australia (and many other teams) would rarely get their full quota of batting overs, or they'd have to rush things so much that they'd get their field placings wrong, or the bowlers would be too fatigued to bowl effectively because of the rush to bowl 50 overs in the prescribed three-and-a-half hours. And these guys claim to be the best in the world?

Back to my original theory - I reckon the team with the smallest medical support squad and the most battle-hardened bodies might end up winning the war of attrition next month in the subcontinent. Clearly, the size of the medical team has very little to do with the fitness levels or injury prevention. So let's just dispense with the extra 'baggage' and see which team can handle the day-to-day rigours of playing tough cricket without falling apart in the dressing room, hotel room or department store. I mean seriously, how do you strain your groin after a first ball duck?

India could have deprived Steve Waugh of such a farewell © Getty Images

The first two misses in this series of great misses - India’s failure to pull off a run-chase at the Oval in 1979, and to bowl out the Aussie tail and then mount a small fourth-innings chase at the MCG in 1985 - were falls at the last hurdle. But for the third entry in this series, there is no one such moment of failure (as there wasn’t in the recently concluded India-South Africa third Test). Instead, a series of small fatal errors added up, ultimately corroding India’s push for a win, which would have ranked, in terms of historical significance, right up there with India’s 1979 Oval Test. I feel the failure in this Test all the more keenly because along with the Bridgetown Test of 1997, it is the Test that I witnessed the greatest proportion of in the flesh: I spent four out of its five days at the SCG.

Welcome then to the SCG in January 2004. India had already pulled off a great miss in the MCG Test, where they had subsided from 278 for 1 to 366 all out, and the later, in the second innings, when, chasing a lead of 192, they had moved 61 runs ahead, with six wickets in hand, on their way to setting Australia either an awkward target or saving the game, they suddenly subsided to 286 all out.

Thus India had failed to protect their 1-0 lead by the time they got to Sydney. When they left Sydney, they had failed to pull off an epic win, one which would have done for Sachin Tendulkar what the Oval Test could have done for Sunil Gavaskar. They failed to dramatically end the Waugh era with a dethroning that would have ensured a dramatic crowning for the Indians. They had failed to pull off a series win against an Australian team reckoned the greatest in the modern era. (Yes, McGrath and Warne weren’t playing; the perfect time to pull off an ambush was at hand!)

The first note of worry came, ironically, after India had piled up a gigantic first-innings score. Did India delay their declaration? When India failed to bowl out Australia on the final day, that became the refrain amongst the cognoscenti. But I didn’t think so then. As I walked home that day from the SCG, worrying about the declaration, I consoled myself with the thought that pressing on for 700 could perhaps help the Indians attack more, set more aggressive fields.

Later, with hindsight, as I saw Hayden and Langer open, I realised that the Aussies, who were not about to be cowed down by that score, would have had a harder time opening late on the 2nd day.

That Hayden-Langer opening stand (which made mincemeat of Agarkar’s bowling figures) was the beginning of the end. As the pair attacked, I sensed some panic on the field. India looked bedraggled all of a sudden; was this really a team defending 700? I suspect the memory of that assault struck fear into Ganguly’s heart.

Still, by the end of the third day, India had taken some vital steps towards a win. They had prised out six vital wickets; Australia were still 164 runs away from saving the follow-in; two days were left; India could push aggressively in a variety of ways on the last two days to win this game.

Things went wrong soon after Lee fell early on the fourth day, for Katich and Gillespie frustrated the Indian advance. When Australia were finally bowled out, though they had not saved the follow-on, they had removed it a possibility. Ganguly was not going to subject his bowlers (and fielders) to another stint on a flattish wicket after they had bowled 117 overs.

To their credit, India batted positively in the second innings, rattling up 211 at almost five an over. Again, the timing of their declaration might have been disputed: why didn’t Ganguly declare half an hour earlier, giving the openers an awkward moment or two, while remaining confident about his ability to prevent Australia from scoring 400 or so? Here, the memory of the Hayden-Langer stand played a vital part in dampening any such adventurousness.

On the last day, Ganguly appeared bereft of ideas other than getting Kumble to bowl from one end, as he sent down 42 out of the 94 overs eventually bowled (Pathan only bowled eight overs in the second innings). Ganguly’s’ fields were excessively diffident; at any given moment, the fear that Australia might suddenly launch an attack and pull off the unlikeliest of wins appeared to be uppermost in the Indian captain’s mind. At one point in that dismal, overcast afternoon at an SCG that was, surprisingly, not packed to capacity, I realised that India would be very, very happy with a 1-1 drawn series.

And so it came to pass, that a glorious opportunity to ensure all sorts of cricketing immortality was missed. Tendulkar’s twofer of 241 and 60 (both not out) would have passed into cricketing lore as the greatest of all batting achievements by an Indian. Would anyone have doubted his ability as a matchwinner? (What would we think of Laxman’s 96 in the Durban Test if the Indian bowlers hadn’t bowled out the hosts?) More importantly, a series win over Waugh’s Aussies in Australia, in Waugh’s final test? Be still, my beating heart.

As the Test wound down, the Indians appeared caught up in the Farewell to Waugh[tm], all too happy to be sharing in the glory of his final test, seemingly unaware they had missed out on a chance of glory for themselves. It was Waugh’s last act of mental disintegration.

Andy Flower picked the right men to form an excellent support staff © Getty Images

The more I think about what went on in the Ashes, the more I appreciate what a brilliant job the England back-room crew did. It is no surprise at all that the players have gone out of their way to praise them and their contribution. Andy Flower. modestly, though quite rightly, says that the credit should go to the players because they are the ones who have to make the right decisions at the right time on the field, but the guys who prepared them for the fight clearly gave them everything they needed to do so.

Perhaps the best illustration is the way the England bowlers dealt with Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Phil Hughes. Time and again, Ponting and Clarke were out to balls bowled to reach them about waist-height a foot or so outside off stump, and they received almost none of the balls directed at their bodies which both of them love to send to the on-side boundaries. Hughes, on the other hand, received almost none of the balls waist-high outside off because he would have clattered them to the fence, and was instead served a diet of body balls which tangled his non-existent defence up completely. The analysts who study the videos of the opposition clearly found the weak spots.

That encapsulates England's attention to detail in preparing for each batsman. What it further shows is the trust the bowlers have in their leadership, because none of them ever seemed tempted to stray from the plan currently in operation, whether it was plan A, B or C. They were exemplary in bowling to their fields, even when a couple of Australians had got themselves set and the temptation to try and find a magic ball to disrupt them must have been overwhelming.

Contrast this with the Australians who spent a great deal of time bowling straight balls at Jonathan Trott to work gratefully into his favoured leg side hour after hour. What on earth were they thinking, or were they thinking at all? And why did no-one tell them to do something else? Shouldn't someone in the Australian camp have known?

Speaking of Trott, how did this fairly ordinary fielder turn into a superb run-out expert, able to make a sharp one even after having batted for several hours? Flower himself gave credit for that to the fielding and fitness coaches.

Batting for several hours is something about which batting coach Graham Gooch holds very strong opinions. Alastair Cook has worked with him for a long time, and his phlegm and unstoppability came from absorbing the lessons: throughout his double-hundred, he said later, Gooch's mantra of “make it a daddy” was constantly running through his mind.

And then there is Flower himself, who runs the whole show. Part of his triumph is to have picked the right men to fill those technical coaching spots, but more lies in the lengthy preparation and planning which brought the team to a peak in late 2010. Periods of rest were prescribed for various players during the year, along with sending some away to do strength and conditioning work rather than playing international cricket. Comment at the time was mostly adverse, but is it not now apparent how sensible it was for the players concerned?

Similarly derided were the boot camps and field trips, but the extraordinary togetherness of the team has to have been built somewhere. This is a squad which clearly bonds well: I can't think of a previous England party which would have embraced the sprinkler dance so enthusiastically and unselfconsciously. Somewhat childish though that dance may be, it has been noticeable that they have been treated like adults. They have gone out to dinner in restaurants rather than huddling in the team hotel bunker, and they have talked with relish of getting the beers in after a win.

But the real masterstroke came in picking the team for the MCG Test. England had the courage to drop Steven Finn, the bowler who had taken the most wickets until then, because Flower reckoned he had shot his bolt. In came Tim Bresnan to bowl the maidens Finn had been incapable of delivering at the WACA. The contrast with the Australian selectors who thought it a good idea to select a patently unfit Doug Bollinger for Adelaide could not be starker.

It was the players who went out on the field and did the business while the coaching staff sat and watched, but that back-room crew can be justly proud that they had done everything they could to make sure that the team could perform at its best.

The failures of Harmison and Johnson are not entirely their fault: we the public are partly to blame too © Getty Images

Reading a lot of the English coverage following the Melbourne Test, you'd have thought that England had achieved an overwhelming victory, but all they have managed so far is to guarantee that they will not lose the series. Granted, it's a major advance on getting thrashed every time they visit Australia, but the euphoria in the media on retaining the Ashes has been way over the top. Even the Australian press, from what I can gather, has been of the total gloom and doom variety even though Australia have not yet lost.

So far, England have outclassed Australia sufficiently to make it more than likely that they will at least not lose at Sydney and thereby win the whole series, when they will deserve all the encomiums currently being showered, but it's all a bit premature right now.

As is the hailing of Tim Bresnan as the new match-winning hero. He did indeed bowl well, but the real match-winning bowling came from Anderson and Tremlett on the first day: Bresnan simply hastened the inevitable.

The point is important because it would be unreasonable to expect Bresnan to carry on taking hatfuls of wickets. His real contribution will best be measured in future by the maidens column of his analysis, because his actual job is to maintain a suffocating control over the batsmen. If he's bowling at the likes of Cook and Trott or, more to the point, Kallis or Dravid, he isn't going to get them out because they are entirely content to let the scoreboard stand still while they bat if that's what it takes to keep their wickets intact. He is only a danger to good batsmen if they are willing to take the risk of trying to hit balls which are not there to be hit.

But having spear-carriers who can steal the scene relieves some of the burden of the leading players, which has not been a luxury afforded to the Australians as yet by their substitutes and late call-ups.

So unthreatening has Australia's bowling attack been that the burden of expectation on Mitchell Johnson is huge, and if he fails to live up to it, there is huge disappointment.

And it's my theory that it's that burden which weighs him down and prevents him bowling well with any regularity.

I see a great deal of similarity with Steve Harmison. Both he and Johnson burst to prominence with a series of outstanding performances which almost no-one had expected. But then, thrust into the spotlight as the standard-bearers, they found themselves under scrutiny the like of which they had never previously experienced, with every minor flaw and mistake endlessly dissected.

Both had a fair amount to dissect. Neither have a stable, easily repeatable bowling action, but one which has to be precisely right for things to work. Well-meaning attempts to help them with a bit of coaching simply serve to make them conscious of all the things which can go wrong. No longer can they bowl as instinct tells them, which was how they got to be selected to start with: now they worry about whether it is going to come out right, so they are tensed up with the inevitable consequence that it often does not.

And yet, because we know how brilliant they can be when they do get it right, we keep hoping that they will finally remember how to do it in the next match and all the ones which follow.

It is a catch-22. They can only succeed if they are not expected to, which means that you can only afford to pick them when you reckon you can get along without them – because if their first couple of overs reveal that the action is not in rhythm today, the captain will be best off ignoring them until tomorrow.

The failures of Harmison and Johnson are not entirely their fault: we the public are partly to blame too, because we invest our hopes in them and expect too high a rate of return, and they go broke trying to meet the payments we demand.

Well, that's a depressing thought with which to start the New Year, but may I wish everyone a happy one anyway.