Why the Waugh machine is a long way from the greatest

View from Oz

Before basketball hoops began appearing on every second suburban garage gable in the Eighties, Australian boys mostly played pick-up cricket in the local park, barefooted if possible. Half-a-dozen lads would gather after school, split into two teams, toss and go for it.

My circle of mates included a boy whose approach differed: he was affectionately known as Fipsy, and he played cricket with himself. He'd hammer in the stumps at each end of the concrete pitch, pad up and then, with the bat in his left hand, roll the ball with his right from the bowler's end. He'd then race the ball down the pitch and, from the batsman's end, belt the ball to the boundary, and then fetch it. The coach told us Fipsy was "touched", possibly a polite reference to his eccentricity, but more likely the coach explaining his non-selection. Fipsy sprang to mind with all this chatter about Steve Waugh's current Australian team being the best the world has ever seen, better than Don Bradman's 1948 side, better than Clive Lloyd's West Indies of the Eighties. Such enthusiastic silliness raises challenging questions. For instance, how should we rate the somewhat ponderous Darren Lehmann against the twinkle-toed Neil Harvey or the panther-like Lloyd? Waugh even likened Matthew Hayden to the incomparable Bradman.

Why should we be surprised? We've had "The Black Bradman" (George Headley), "The Next Bradman" (Doug Walters), so why not "The Left-handed Bradman"? Would Waugh's praise of Hayden be less effusive if we reminded him that not so many Test series ago he was running between the wickets with a talented left-handed batsman named Allan Border?

But it's the Fipsy Factor – how would a champion team fare playing against itself? – which might help get this puffery into something approaching perspective. Naturally, it's all hypothetical, but if Glenn McGrath can make such a perpetual mess of left-handers like Brian Lara and Gary Kirsten and Marcus Trescothick, why not Hayden and Justin Langer? The younger Hayden was always troubled by bounce and movement in, the result of his commitment to a front-foot prop. Over his career it's Australian bowlers who have dismissed him most, Jo Angel (eight, bounce and inswing), David Saker (seven, inswing and seam), Colin Miller (six, inswing, off-spin), Paul Reiffel (five, swing, seam). The weakness remains, and was briefly on show in this Perth Test, but Alex Tudor and Co hadn't the consistency in line and length to maintain pressure. We know McGrath does. Langer is not great, just gritty. The former Australian leg-spinner Kerry O'Keeffe thinks watching him bat is like "watching bananas brown". Langer seems to take more blows to the helmet than most. Brett Lee would appreciate that. Langer is often out leg before, beaten by pace, and has a weakness to the ball moving in. Swing bowlers dismiss him the most: Damien Fleming (eight), Mark Ridgway (six) and Miller (five).

Anyone inclined to rate Hayden and Langer as the greatest opening batting pair of all time should first rate Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge, Lloyd's openers. They succeeded consistently against so many of the greats: Hadlee, Kapil Dev, Imran, Akram, Botham, Lillee, Lawson, Alderman, Hogg, McDermott. Those names remind us of the sheer depth to world cricket in those days. In the main, the fast bowling attacks today are no-names, witness England in Perth.

Lloyd's bowling attack was Roberts, Holding, Marshall, Garner, Croft. That raises another question about this current Australian team: without McGrath, how effective would they be? Firstly, there would be a psychological benefit for the opponent, and it's improbable that Jason Gillespie, Lee and Andy Bichel, good though they are, could maintain pressure like McGrath, a champion in any era. Yet, any one of Lloyd's attack could be omitted and the West Indian team remain formidable.

Evidence most quoted to support Australia's "We Are The Greatest" claim is the heady record run of victories. Be prepared for more. They are on the way to a clean sweep in this series against England, who seem on the edge of physical disintegration, if not mental. Then, next summer Australia have the good luck to be playing a Test against Bangladesh, whose world standing reminds us that back in 1999 Waugh's team began their record-winning run against Zimbabwe.

Lloyd's men had no such luxuries. In time, this era of world cricket will be regarded as one of historic mediocrity. That, when combined with the Fipsy Factor, prompts the unpatriotic conclusion that Lloyd's team were the best: the track record of Haynes and Greenidge against the great fast men of their era better equips them to handle Roberts and Co than Hayden and Langer's feasting on small fry does them to match it with McGrath.