Australia's aura

This is an absolutely cracking bit of cricket writing by Rob Steen at Cricinfo. Its about the aura that Australia play with, simple enough, but its very eloquently described.

Its something that England can never hope to replicate. England players are proud to be English and proud to play for England, but we never operate with the kind of bravado that the Aussies do.

That means England have to be better than Australia by that little bit extra...if England play Australia with theoretically equal sides, the Australian attitude will enable them to prevail. They never give in, their heads never drop, they just keep on coming at you regardless of the situation. England on the other hand will tend to get bogged down in the situation, if its not going our way our shoulders will drop and we'll let the match slip away.

This won't happen every time, and sometimes England will shock me and show some real character. In fact that has happened more times than I'd have thought over the last 12 months (Centurion, Cardiff, Cape Town), but with Australia its routine, and you have to admire them for that.