The Ashes 2013: Winning - the habit that destroyed Australian cricket

As the straps are put on, you start to feel jittery. It’s like that the body knows that something’s about to give. Then as it slowly goes up, the heart starts to thud. It thuds so loud that you can literally hear it.

Then comes the drop. It starts with a fluttery feeling in the stomach, and as you proceed to the loops, you close your eyes and start screaming your lungs out to show the world that you love it, when actually the truth is that you don’t even know what’s hit you.

That’s how you feel on a roller coaster, and that’s exactly how Michael Clarke feels right now.

“It’s obviously been extremely tough, and you probably take it more personally when you’re captain of the team as well…”, Michael Clarke said after the 347-run loss in the 2nd Test at Lord’s with a straight face but when you hear him say, “What can I say? The crowd laughed when I said we could win the series…”, you know that the ego has been badly bruised.

Six straight Test matches lost in a row and the country wants answers. The cricket fraternity wants answers. One look at Michael Clarke and you know that he can’t breathe properly unless he screams and his stomach wants to churn out of his body.

Micheal “Pup” Clarke is awfully lost and so is his team.

Rewind a year back. Double hundreds, triple hundreds, white-wash wins – Michael Clarke was winning and winning big. He smiled and lashed out witty one-liners to the media while another man with salt-pepper stubble went ducking the brick-bats and mending rifts in his side.

Things change and boy, they change fast!

At Lord’s, Shane Watson approached the crease with his laboured run-up and delivered the ball just short of the driving length. Joe Root went on the back foot and tried to punch the ball through covers. The ball seamed just enough and caught the edge. The ball flew at a comfortable catchable height and bisected the first slip and the wicket-keeper perfectly for a boundary.

It was Brad Haddin’s catch, and he made the first movement to get to the ball. However, he decided to pull out at the moment that eventually put Clarke off at first slip. As the ball travelled towards the third-man boundary, Haddin and Clarke looked at each other with an expression that summed up the state of Australian cricket.

“We want to land the first punch.” - Matt Prior proclaimed before the start of the Ashes.

England did land the first punch, but it wasn’t hard enough. However, Australia made sure that they got knocked out at Lord’s, thanks to a horror display of skills and decision making.

Australia have been poor, period. They have failed to put up a fight, have not been able to take advantage of England’s weaknesses, have been a nightmare with the willow, but most importantly, have made poor decisions.

And that’s how superpowers fall and empires collapse. It happened to the West Indies in the 90s and the wheels are now coming off the Aussie regime. They are not used to it because Australia have seldom lost. They have been the most prevailing force in the game and have dominated the cricket world.

But winning can be dangerous. It is an insane cocktail that lulls us into a false sense of security and leads into a world of power and dominance that, believe it or not, becomes our biggest enemy.

Cricket Australia is the latest victim of the “winning” drug.