Williamson joins long list of failed leaders
TAKE down the captain. Take down the team.
You know the Australian team is getting back to its best when it dismantles opposition teams from the top down.
It’s happening again this summer. Australia are ruffling Mr Unruffled Kane Williamson whose returns – 34, 14, 9 and 0 – are diminishing by the innings.
The declining numbers tell the story. As the stress grows, Williamson’s once Zen-like concentration levels have scrambled and the dividends have decreased.
Williamson is following a long line of visiting captains to be crushed by the stress of trying to beat Australia in the devil’s lair.
Nasser Hussain, Graham Gooch, Jimmy Adams, Wasim Akram and Sachin Tendulkar all had their captaincy careers directly terminated or seriously shortened after landslide defeats on our shores.
That won’t happen to Williamson who has become a celebrated figure after guiding his side to with a run of taking the World Cup then beating England in a Test series in New Zealand.
But this is still a truly chastening moment for himself and his team despite the great fight displayed by Tom Blundell in his against-the-odds century.
In a way Blundell’s coolheaded defiance only spotlighted the shortcomings of the more experienced men above him in the order.
Like so many visiting captains the whole “Australia thing’’ seems to have ground Williamson down.
His shot in the first innings – a reckless top edged hook – was the sign of a fatigue and his lbw in the second innings was another surprise error in judgment as he played across the line and missed one from James Pattinson.
He was stiff to be given out to a ball which would barely have taken a coat of varnish off leg-stump – if it hit it at all – but, true to the decent sportsman that he is, simply walked off.
No pundit tipped a greenhorned Pakistan team would provide stiffer opposition than New Zealand this summer but the livelier decks of Perth and Melbourne have rattled the Kiwis.