Adulation would be one word to describe it, but it would be a fairly poor one. Directly after an AMP-Sanmar press conference at Chennai, veteran journalists – stern inquisitors of the company’s advertising budget and fiscal-year targets during the conference – metamorphose swiftly into starstruck boys and girls, hurrying photographers into getting their pictures taken with Steve Waugh.Waugh, suave brand ambassador that he is, is only too happy to oblige, putting aside a mild case of stomach trouble to smile on as hotel waiters and cameramen flank him, beaming sunnily. In an exclusive interview with after the press conference, however, Waugh lets on that he is not as used to the adulation as he looks.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” says Waugh. “You might do if you live here, but living in Australia and coming to India only sporadically, it amazes me more and more every time. It’s pretty incredible the following cricket has in India. In fact, it’s actually good to go back to Australia, get your feet back on the ground, and realise that you’re a normal human being, just like everyone else.”Ask any cricket-obsessed schoolboy in India, however, and Waugh is anything but a normal human being. His grit and spirit are bywords in cricket across the vast spread of India, which is why his omission from Australia’s one-day squad was greeted with possibly more shock in India than in his home country.Not being named in the Australia ‘A’ one-day side is merely the latest setback to Waugh’s declared objective of playing in the 2003 World Cup. “I didn’t know when it was going to be picked, but the selectors have been sticking with their policy of giving younger players a go,” says Waugh. “What I have to do now is to give my complete best when I start playing for New South Wales this current season.”His first-class performances just ahead may well decide whether Waugh sets out for South Africa next January, and he is all too aware of that. “It’s an important season, but I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself,” he says. “I just want to go out and try to enjoy my cricket. I’ve always tried to do that, and last year perhaps I didn’t do that enough. But I think if I focus too much on just getting back into the World Cup side, I’ll lose track of where I’m going.”But that doesn’t preclude any preparation altogether. “There’s maybe one or two things I’d like to work on – my footwork and a few other things,” says Waugh. “But cricket is a mind game at this stage; you don’t lose technique all of a sudden. It’s just a matter of how you’re thinking and getting your head cleared – that’s the biggest hurdle.”Did that hurdle get harder to scale towards his last few one-day matches for Australia, then? “No, I wasn’t unhappy with the way I was playing one-day cricket; in fact I think my Test form wasn’t as good as my one-day form,” says Waugh. “It was just a very hectic season, and it all happened very quickly. I hadn’t had a pre-season because of the DVT (deep-vein thrombosis) in my leg, so looking back, that wasn’t great preparation.”A relatively quiet international season – for him – hasn’t stopped Waugh from keenly analysing the game, and his views on recent developments are clear-cut and concise. On the ICC’s trial of the third umpire for leg-before decisions during the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka in September, for instance, Waugh finds himself resolutely opposing the proposal.”Cricket has always been a great talking point, and that’s why people love it so much, because they can discuss the decisions and speculate on what might have been,” says Waugh. “With that gone, you lose a lot of the beauty and uniqueness of cricket. I think the umpires do a pretty good job, and really, if I was an umpire and that was taken away from me, that’s like saying you can’t play the cover-drive or the hook-shot.”
On the consensus about playing too much cricket at the recent Test captains’ meeting in London – and on the ICC’s subsequent rejection of it – Waugh is more ambiguous. “I think 12-14 Tests and 25-30 one-day internationals per year is reasonable, but there’s a lot of money involved in cricket these days, and I think the players have a responsibility to play,” he says. Waugh does recognise that a packed schedule would lead to players having to choose between Test and one-day cricket. “I myself would like to play both types, but it’s an individual decision. If you’re a fast bowler like Javagal Srinath and want to prolong your career, a good way to do it is just play one type of cricket.”Preparation becomes doubly important in the face of so much cricket, but Waugh laughingly admits he has his own routines for the day before a Test. “I have a massage or a swim, probably see a movie or eat some pasta,” he says. “I also definitely have a shave; I like to feel clean and fresh and prepared, which may sound stupid, but you feel good about yourself physically and mentally.”It’s a simple enough theory, just like Waugh’s simple-enough goals for the immediate future. “Obviously winning in India’s a big goal for Australia,” he says with a smile. “But as a player, my goal has always been to play the next ball to the best of my ability, and that’s the way I approach my career – simple and straightforward.” As philosophies go, that is a difficult one to challenge. But perhaps that is only too appropriate; as cricketers go, Steve Waugh is a difficult one to challenge as well.