All that it took was the threat of “a broken f**king arm’, and the Australian public was on board with Michael Clarke and his men.
At the start of the 2013-14 Ashes series it became immediately apparent that Darren Lehmann’s reformed Australian cricket team planned to put their new ‘no holds barred’ approach into practice. Whatever Boof did, it worked.
It’s been ten years since Darren Lehman made 160 test runs against the West Indies at Bourda, The Garden City of the Caribbean, but the man appears to be as in control as ever, if not more so. Seemingly forgotten are the accusations of racism that marred his career in 2003, he’s now being heralded as Australian cricket’s saving grace.
This month, the South Australian cricketer turned Australian National Coach, watched his team defy the bookies and turn around the general publics opinion. Not only return the Ashes, but do so in a strikingly convincing five-nil white wash.
It was a little over a year ago when Lehmann watched this same team lose to the same measure. After Cricket Australia saw fit to release Mickey Arthur from his contract and literally, fly in Lehmann for an unlikely and difficult salvage attempt. Thrust to the helm of the squad two weeks before the English hosted Ashes series, the inherited side was at best; in disarray and at its worst. To a point where players and mates had stopped speaking to each other.
Of course, two weeks amounted to no time to change a thoroughly discouraged team culture and the losses mounted. The players, administration and coach alike copped the backlash for a series loss that perhaps wasn’t as bad as the scoreboard reflected.
No sympathy was given to the team from the Australian public, the downfall that saw the team all but destroyed in mid-2013 was considered self-inflicted. The way ‘Boof’ Lehmann has turned around his side and its internal culture, has gone a long way in erasing those previous losses.
Darren Lehmann might have played more Test cricket if it weren’t for the abundance of talented batsmen in Australia in the 1990s and early 2000s. As a stocky and confident left-hander,
Lehmann was an entertaining mixture of blunt force and well-timed style.
His aggressive style of cricket has steered Australia towards their most surprising and yet convincing series win in years. For a man who long seemed to defy the value of sports science, the coach has assembled a strong and yet mixed team of staff around him. Having famously said “When he first started they put the beers on ice... Now (its) the players on ice” it’s the 0000000balance that has come 0000000about between the old 00000000and new, that seems to 00000000have impressed the 000000000players.
0000000000Lehmann focused on 0000000000mental conditioning 000000000000during the season 00000000000as much as the p y b
All Aboard the Boof Express