By Andrew Ramsey
January 29, 2005
BEREFT of competition over the past three years, Australia’s one-day team has turned to its one unconquered foe – the record books – to lift themselves to greater glory.
Unbackable favourites to win the VB Series in a canter and boasting a remarkable record of 68 wins from 87 matches under Ricky Ponting’s captaincy, the world champions are eyeing a goal once thought unattainable.
They want to be the first team to reach a 50-over total of 400 in an international match.
“It’s certainly been promoted to the players that the concept of 400 is a reality, and that we should be the first team to achieve it,” coach John Buchanan said yesterday.
"The concept’s there, and I think it’s another of those little hills the one-day side is striving to achieve.
"Rather than being happy with ‘yeah, we’re beating everybody’ - and we like to win - we need to keep raising ourselves.
“This is just one example, and there’s no reason why it can’t be achieved.”
Ponting’s mantra since taking over from Steve Waugh as one-day captain three years ago has been for his team to strive for improvement in every match and training session.
While it has only served to widen the gulf between Australia and opposing teams, the results speak for themselves.
Four of Australia’s five highest one-day totals have been posted since 2002, when Ponting took over.
And he believes the current make-up of his team - with power hitters Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Ponting and Andrew Symonds in the top five - means a 400-plus total is within their reach.
“I think it (400) will happen and I think it’s something that’s pretty achievable for our side,” Ponting said.
“It’s not really anything we’ve sat down and spoken about, but it has been written on some of our team meeting blackboards at times - and with our team we think it’s something that’s achievable.”
In 2213 one-day internationals contested around the world over 34 years, only one team has come close to the 400 mark.
En route to their World Cup triumph in 1996, Sri Lanka’s powerful batting line-up smashed a second-rate Kenyan attack all over the intimate, hilltop ground in Kandy to finish with 5-398 off 50 overs.
On that occasion, the tempo was set by openers Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana, who clubbed a first-wicket stand of 83 from 40 balls and then crowned by a scorching 145 off 115 balls by Aravinda de Silva, who blasted 14 fours and five sixes.
The remaining handful of one-day totals in excess of 370 have been achieved against genuine Test nations, albeit on small grounds.
But Ponting and Buchanan believe a score of 400 is achievable at any venue, including the vast Australian grounds, provided the team institutes a couple of changes to their current one-day game plan.
The first is for the openers to lay a substantial platform with a partnership of 200 or more within the first 30 overs.
Buchanan believes that one of those batsmen must then adopt the sort of role former opener Geoff Marsh played in the late 1980s and early '90s by batting unbeaten throughout the innings, although showing greater urgency.
“We need a good launch pad to work from and that may mean going back to the old days where the Geoff Marshes of the world batted through an innings,” Buchanan said.
"Where he would finish with 130 or around that mark, it may mean we need to have one bloke make 180 or go on to become the first to make 200.
"Either that, or we’ve got to get two scores of 140 or 150.
“And we would have to do some simple things like running between wickets better to pick up a further 10 or 20 runs an innings.”
As Ponting pointed out, another key alteration would be one of mind-set to ensure that once a sizeable launch pad was laid and the score closed in on 300 that batsmen did not take their hands off the throttle believing the total was already insurmountable.
Ponting also believes the introduction of the Twenty20 slog-fest will do much to hasten the aggregate scores in the 50-over game as players become even more confident in their ability to belt the ball in the air and over the fence.
“We’ve seen that over the last few years in Test cricket, it’s why we and some of the other sides are scoring well over 300 runs a day in Test cricket now,” Ponting said.
“There’s no real concern about hitting over the top as there once was, and the Twenty20 game will bring that into 50-over cricket as well.”
However, the only man to have scored 400 runs off his own bat in international cricket - West Indies captain Brian Lara - does not believe a total of 400 is achievable if batting against a world-class opposition bowling attack.
Lara claims the only scenario under which he could imagine the mark toppling was against sub-standard bowlers on a small English village-style ground.