The forgotten Border
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
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It’s 25 years since Allan Border took over as Australia’s captain and guided them from despair. Not that anyone except Mike Coward noticed. He writes in the Weekend Australian that Border’s contribution to Australian cricket is almost impossible to measure.
Attention should always be drawn to December 7, 1984 when Border succeeded his mate Kim Hughes as skipper against the West Indies in Adelaide. It is a date of the utmost significance for it marks the beginning of what is best termed "the age of stability" in Australian cricket.
It is much too easy following the heady successes of the past 20 years under Border, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist to ignore, even forget, the confusion, controversy and tensions which so characterised Australian cricket in 1984.
In the Sydney Morning Herald Peter Roebuck picks an Australian back-up team, ruling out anyone over 30. Peter Hanlon reports in the Age about the search for Aboriginal cricketers.
Peter English is former Australasia editor of ESPNcricinfo