ACS Oveseas First-Class Annual 2013

Australia in 2012/13 Australia’s Test side began the 2012/13 season by going down 1-0 at home in a three-match series with top-ranked South Africa, losing the third Test comprehensively after having had the upper hand for much of the first two drawn Tests. In both the first two games they were aided by a double-century from captain M.J.Clarke, his third and fourth Test 200s of 2012, a year in which his tally of 1,595 runs in 11 Tests (average 106.33) was almost 350 runs more than any other player, worldwide. The 3-0 win at home against a declining Sri Lanka that followed was perhaps no more than was expected, but Australia’s rehabilitation was abruptly curtailed when they lost 4-0 in India, despite winning all four tosses: a result that exactly reversed the scoreline from their home series against India 15 months previously. The season saw the retirement from Tests of two of the last members of the great Australian sides of recent years. R.T.Ponting retired at the end of the series with South Africa, after a career of 168 Tests and 13,378 runs at an average of 51.85. Ponting’s departure was not entirely a surprise, as his form had been declining in recent years. Much less expected was the decision of M.E.K.Hussey to retire at the end of the Sri Lanka series, when still near the height of his powers; but after 79 Tests and 6235 runs (average 51.52), this latecomer to Test cricket decided that with his 38th birthday approaching, the time was right to leave the stage to younger players. Unfortunately for Australia, however, the supply of consistent younger batsman seemed to have dried up. Clarke proved their only top-class batsman, and though several of the younger men had their occasional moments of triumph, none demonstrated the consistent ability to make good scores that had helped to secure Australia’s domination of the Test scene for so many years in the 1990s and 2000s. Australia’s bowling prospects looked more hopeful - and it was a benefit that several of the specialist bowlers were also very competent batsmen, with both P.M.Siddle and M.A.Starc making two half-centuries during the 2012/13 Tests (Starc made 99 in a losing cause at Mohali). But the absence of a top-quality spinner and of consistently fit faster bowlers proved a handicap. Off-spinner N.M.Lyon (34 wickets at 39.79) was the leading wicket-taker across the three series of 2012/13, but among the specialist bowlers only he and Siddle (nine Tests each) managed to stay fit and in favour long enough to play in more than half of the ten Tests in those series. In all, Australia used as many as 22 different players in those ten Tests, and by the end of the season seemed no nearer to knowing their best side than they had been at the start of it. Had they won the third Test against South Africa instead of losing it, they would have regained top spot in the ICC rankings; but their failure to do so, and the comprehensive defeat in India, meant that they slipped from third to fourth place by the end of 2012/13, with the rehabilitation project well and truly stalled. At home, the Sheffield Shield competition could not have been closer. All six teams won four of their ten matches, and at the end of the league phase only four points separated first from sixth. New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland headed the points table, either on their own or in some combination, throughout the season, until Tasmania went to the top for the first time by winning their final two matches. Their opponents in the final were Queensland – it would have been New South Wales but for the fact that the latter had a point deducted for a slow over-rate in one of the early-season matches. With home advantage in the final, Tasmania only needed a draw to take the Shield for the third time in seven seasons, and draw they duly did, after a dogged match in which runs came at less than 2.5 per over throughout. Tasmania’s first innings of 419 gave them an edge right from the start, and a lead of 194 seemed to have made the Shield secure. The loss of five Tasmanian second-innings wickets for 15 briefly gave Queensland hope, but a stand of 161 for the seventh wicket ensured that Tasmania would not be beaten. 29