Anyone as well versed in military and political strategy as John Buchanan is aware of the long-established strategy of divide and rule. Australia’s tall and cerebral coach knew exactly what he was dropping into the laps of attentive reporters yesterday when he not only made his calculated observation that he has seen no evidence that Kevin Pietersen is a “team man”, but also questioned the choice of Andrew Flintoff as England captain.
“Andrew Flintoff, if he looked back on his tour at this point in time, would be very disappointed,” Buchanan said. “At least there’s no question on the intent or the attitude or his desire to lead from the front.
“It just hasn’t been, unfortunately for him, matched by results. That’s important as a leader when you set yourself up to be the leader, the go-to man when anything is required with good decisions, a good innings, a good spell, whatever, you need to deliver.
“You see that from Ricky Ponting, generally. He’ll lead from the front and he’ll lead by example. You’ve just got to walk the walk and I know Flintoff’s tried, but it hasn’t worked.”
This is typical of the Buchanan style: a thorough analysis of the enemy and a relentless drive for excellence in his own team. His approach has always been that nothing should ever be left to chance and that every advantage that can legitimately be gained for the team in his charge is worth the effort.
Buchanan’s imminent retirement from Australia’s cricket team has naturally attracted less publicity than the high-profile farewells of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Damien Martyn, with Justin Langer soon to follow and Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden probably not far behind them. But Sydney next week will also mark the final Test appearance of their scholarly guide, organiser and provoker. He has two goals left for the team: a twelfth successive victory in Sydney and a successful retention of the World Cup on April 28.
He may look, despite his spectacles, as though he has just clambered down from a horse in the Wild West; and he may have attracted a fair amount of ridicule from both former and contemporary players from time to time — Warne prominent among them — with his unconventional references to the theories of military strategists and Chinese philosophers, but on the field his teams have played sound, orthodox cricket in the true traditions of the Australian game.
The all-rounder of modest success for Queensland with a degree in sports science has always challenged conventional thinking. In the heat of India, for example, he told his fast bowlers that they should forget their normal warm-up routines in order to conserve energy. Knowing that Andrew Symonds would prosper best by playing his natural game, he gave him leave to put his computer analyses, devoured by the likes of the studious Langer, straight into the waste-paper basket.
Getting players of great ability, as he puts it, “to deliver what’s inside them” is his greatest motivation for coaching.
Buchanan was the first man to coach Queensland to success in the Sheffield Shield, since when they have made winning its successor, the Pura Cup, more or less a habit. Clad in a tracksuit but with a laptop seldom far from reach, he has presided over an extraordinary record of 68 Test wins and only 12 draws in the 90 games since he succeeded Geoff Marsh in 1999; and 142 victories in 185 completed one-day internationals.
That record and the wholesale revenge for 2005 has set him up for the rest of a working life that he intends to spend on coaching other sports coaches and motivating business managers, allowing him more time to be with a family of five that includes Michael, an aggressive all-rounder on the fringe of the Queensland team. For the moment, the eyes of Buchanan Sr are firmly focused on completing the demolition of the country that administered the blot on his escutcheon in England last year. Reflecting on the series to date, he singled out England’s over-cautious batting after winning the toss in Adelaide as the real start of their failure to compete.
“It didn’t suggest the team was going to play with aggression, believe in themselves, challenge the opposition, take risks or back itself in any situation,” he said. “There’s one player that does do that and that’s Pietersen. There might be one or two others who do it but they don’t have the skill of Pietersen. They obviously had their plans and believed they would work but they were not the side we faced in 2005. There was definitely something missing. A lot of the English players have talked about the Australia tour as being the hardest. It may well be, but it’s how you deal with those tough periods that is the measure of individuals and the team.”
One of the themes of his widely publicised boot camp last August was to subject the players and the support staff to some physically and mentally challenging moments. “It was all about how you responded to that as an individual and if you found somebody not responding that well it was about how your team-mate helps you out,” he said. “We felt that would be helpful for the ICC Trophy — a challenge — the Ashes — a big challenge — and, looking ahead, the World Cup.
“I came back from the Ashes tour — obviously Duncan Fletcher will be in the same position — and I had to ask myself if I could still make a difference, have an impact on the team. I decided I could.
“In 2005 I found I lost the real essence of the side at certain times through the tour. That was important because as a coach you need to understand how a team feels and how individuals feel. If you’ve lost that feel for the side your words have less impact and meaning. We were not as well prepared as we should have been but we’d had a fair bit of cricket before and we chose to rest. We had a one-day tour first and that exposed a few of the frailties so we played a lot of catch-up cricket. We ran into a side that was really prepared to play Test match cricket.
“There are a lot of similarities there with what England are experiencing on this tour. In this series we’ve been tested at certain periods of time, but they haven’t been able to sustain their skills through five days.
“We wanted to re-establish the gap between us and what is supposedly the second-best team in the world. We’ve won ten from ten for the year and it’s up to the other teams to come chasing us.”
Buchanan claimed that Australia were not driven by the thought of a 5-0 success although he added that his side would continue to play aggressive cricket in Sydney in responding to the challenge of an England team desperate to avoid total humiliation.
“I’m hoping England really enjoy the new year and come back with a new resolve and are really ready to take us head-on in Sydney,” he said. “There is nothing to lose for them and I’m sure they don’t want to go down 5-0 and I’m sure we want to go up 5-0. It’s a real challenge ahead for England.”
Australia’s unchanged squad for the final Test that starts on Tuesday means there is no place for Stuart MacGill, the leg spinner, on his home ground. It is a sign that the selectors are already looking at the next generation of spinners but, for the time being, Symonds will support Warne with his off spin.
