Former Australian coach John Buchanan believes Australia’s present downslide and conundrums have arisen from not paying heed to past mistakes.
Buchanan joined a string of former Australian cricketers, experts and coaches who have had their say on Australia’s series defeat to South Africa, their first home defeat since 1992-’93. According to Buchanan, Australia’s defeats were not entirely surprisingly because he felt pointers in the past had been ignored only to blow up in the face.
Coach of a successful Australian side since 1999 to 2007, Buchanan now believes that in light of an unprecedented number of retirements by Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Damien Martyn, Justin Langer, Jason Gillepie (through ICL) and Stuart MacGill, Australia have found the perfect excuse but that it is not entirely true and that their recent downturn first in the Border Gavaskar Trophy and now against South Africa cannot merely be attributed to the change of guard.
Buchanan who was with the Kolkata Knight Riders team during the IPL also shared a love-hate relationship with a few Australian members of the then squad. Shane Warne in particular did not hide his feelings about Buchanan saying he was much of a talker and that not many in the team were listening to him at the time.
Relationships apart, Buchanan feels that there were inherent flaws within the system that needed an overhaul and it would mean more than just identifying and coaching talent. While he chose not to deliberately focus, for public scrutiny, on the issues that he felt Cricket Australia had turned a blind eye, his words state, “I think the real upside here, the real upside for everybody, is that it’s a fantastic opportunity for administrators, coaches, players to actually stop and look at what’s actually happening, and not just the immediacy of the results.”
