It has been some time — which, in today's sporting culture of nowness, where the past is shut out, is actually a long time — since Australia has lost its familiar aura of invincibility, both in Test cricket and in One Day Internationals.
But consider this: going into Friday's Group ‘A' league match against its Antipodean rival New Zealand, Australia will carry a huge burden — that of one of the longest winning streaks in modern sport. On Wednesday, it will be 4,294 days since it was beaten in a World Cup game. And it happened on a rather cold May afternoon at Leeds in May 1999, when the peerless Wasim Akram bagged four wickets to stop the Aussies 11 short of their target.
It is another matter that Steve Waugh's 1999 side actually ended up winning the Cup, thanks in part to a bunch of charitably-minded South Africans with nerves of jelly.
Steve Waugh's words during that epic contest against South Africa, uttered to a heart-broken Herschelle Gibbs after he dropped the Aussie captain (“You just dropped the World Cup, mate”) is part of cricketing folklore.
The match was tied after a tragicomic misunderstanding in the last over between Lance Klusener, in the form of his life, and Allan Donald in the final over. But Australia went through to the final — where it hammered a hapless Pakistan — because it had beaten South Africa in the Super Sixes round.
That sort of adrenaline high and big-stage glory might seem elusive to Ricky Ponting's men 12 years on, and most cricket-savvy punters may have chosen to steer clear of Punter's men, but this is as good a time as any to celebrate one of the greatest achievements in limited-overs cricket.
Just imagine. Virat Kohli, who made a century on World Cup debut against Bangladesh the other day, and Piyush Chawla had probably just made it to high school when Australia was last beaten in a World Cup match. Roger Federer was the reigning junior Wimbledon champion and the world's biggest worry seemed to be the Y2K bug!
There are two kinds of burdens in sport: the first is the one that faces an in-form team riding a wave of confidence. Dhoni's Indians fit the bill here in the context of the ongoing World Cup matches. They are weighed down by great expectations.
The other kind of burden is often faced by a great team in decline, with their pride and hard-won record at stake. Ponting's Aussies carry the weight of history on their slumping shoulders.
Their rivals may have enjoyed a schadenfreudian thrill witnessing Australia's decline in recent times, but Ponting's team is made up of proud men — we are talking of authentic and well-earned as opposed to hubristic pride here — and they would hate to lose a record that is good enough to match anything else achieved in any sport, not just cricket.
There are many, many ways in which to lose in sport. But there are few in which to succeed; and fewer still in which to keep on succeeding, time after time after time, across decades. In the World Cups, the Aussies have not only showcased great talent and a sense of occasion but have also consistently unleashed the inner mongrel in them to stay in the fight.
Whether this beleaguered bunch can reprise the feats of their predecessors from a position which — on paper — leaves them a fair distance behind the favourites is something that is open to debate. What is beyond question is the magnitude of their achievement.
Memorable streaks are hard to accomplish and that is part of the reason why they stay in our minds. Brazil is the only country on the planet to have featured in every single World Cup since the inaugural competition in Uruguay in 1930. This is an extraordinary achievement in arguably the most competitive and popular sport in the world.
In individual sports, what comes to mind first is the great Pakistani Jahangir Khan's mind-boggling 555-match winning streak in squash in the 1980s. Others include Martina Navratilova's 74-match winning run in 1984, Edwin Moses going unbeaten through 122 hurdles (400m) races, Carl Lewis winning 65 consecutive long jump competitions and Rafael Nadal staying undefeated on clay through 81 matches.
These are benchmarks of greatness, and the Australian Test team itself set one by winning 16 Tests in a row before V.V.S. Laxman's innings of a lifetime stopped them on their tracks at Eden Gardens in 2001.
Even in the era of Facebook and Twitter, when the moment matters more than distant memory — however rich and truly elevating that might be — it would be perilous to ignore history. For the present is a product of the past.
And even in decline, the Aussies deserve to be appreciated for what they have accomplished over 12 long years — an unbeaten streak of 30 World Cup games. Greatness deserves a toast even when it is fading; so let us do it while the streak is still on.
