World cricket will enter a new era on Thursday morning Brisbane time, and the frisson will be all the greater if Sri Lanka's captain Mahela Jayawardene wins the toss and decides to bat. Well, that's the theory at least.
Ricky Ponting has been preparing for this moment since January, when Australia wrapped up their Ashes whitewash (that was their most recent Test: what would England give for a break like that?) But it will still feel unnatural without Glenn McGrath to ease first-morning nerves, and without Shane Warne to keep things tight and tasty. Michael Clarke has already suggested that the Australian public should not expect too much; Stuart Clark has admitted the cricketing world will be watching with interest. Swagger, for the time being, has been replaced by the kind of quotes we are used to hearing from, well, pretty much every other side in the world.
For those who hope that life after Shane and Glenn will give everyone else a chance, a couple of heart-warming stats. The last time Australia played a Test without either of them, against India at Sydney in January 2004, their bowlers took 9 for 916. The last time England won a Test in Australia, at the same venue a year earlier, both men were injured. And in the 38 Tests since the India game, Warne and McGrath have taken 350 wickets of the 740 claimed by Australia. Will they be missed? Of course they will.
A more relevant question is: how much? The bad news for those who crave an end to Australian hegemony is that that times have changed. The last time they lost three greats at the same time - let's not forget Justin Langer here - was at the start of 1984, when Greg Chappell, Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee all retired at the end of the 2-0 home win over Pakistan. It was the start of that rarest of cricketing phenomena: an Australian dark age.
Between then and the victorious 1989 Ashes series, they won only seven Tests out of 45, and two series out of 13, including victory in a one-off Test against the then-inexperienced Sri Lankans. Not even victory in the 1987 World Cup could disguise their general awfulness. In fact, things were so awful that Allan Border decided it must never happen again. With typical Aussie determination, it never did. The rest is not so much history as near-fantasy.
That is the background against which we must assess the current crop, a group of players lucky enough to have been forged in the post-Border era when success has been the only option. And, before you get too excited, just look at the attack Sri Lanka will have to deal with at the Gabba over the next few days: Clark (whose similarities to McGrath even extend to his prediction that Australia will win all six Tests - two v Sri Lanka, four v India) in the coming months; Brett Lee (231 Test wickets, for all his occasional profligacy); the mouth-wateringly promising Mitchell Johnson; and, in all probability, Stuart MacGill, taker of the least noticed 198 Test wickets in history. Andrew Symonds is the helping, hulking hand.
No team in the history of the game would have been able to gloss over the loss of 1,271 Test wickets, but this Australian side is as well-equipped as any to implement damage limitation. And if they manage to outbowl a Sri Lankan attack whose options of pace (Lasith Malinga), variety (Chaminda Vaas), bounce (Dilhara Fernando) and unorthodox spin (Muttiah Muralitharan) bear an uncanny resemblance to their own, we will know that the changing of the guard could yet turn out to be ominously smooth.
Extract taken from The Spin, Guardian Unlimited's free weekly take on the world of cricket. Subscribe now.
