Tuesday, October 23, 2001 If MTV were to hand out awards for post-Bradman Australian batsmanship Greg Chappell would be voted best male artist, Dougie Walters most popular, Norm O'Neill best newcomer. Dean Jones (210 v India) might win best single and Mark Taylor (839 v England) best album. Only towards the tedious middle part of the ceremony -- when the compère slips backstage, the audience drifts into a coma and the Most Outstanding Career Achievement gong is announced -- would the two men who have ruled the roost for the last 20 years get a mention: Allan Border and Steve Waugh.

By most criteria, this seems entirely reasonable. Unlike, say, Shane Warne, neither Border nor Waugh has fired the imagination of teenagers or triggered a renaissance in stoic middle-order batsmen. But how many Tests did Harvey or Greg Chappell, for all their peachy precision, actually win or save for their country? It is politically incorrect to say so, but a question-mark hangs over Chappell's mettle against the mightiest: in six Tests against the West Indies attacks of the late 1970s and early '80s he averaged 29. He retired immediately before Australia tackled ten straight Tests against those same fire-breathers -- a move which, in hindsight, seems a little gutless and which Border or Waugh, even when incapacitated by deep-vein thrombosis, would never contemplate.

Another chapter in the Waugh legend, and some more gripping fodder for his next book, will be etched on November 8 when he strides out at the Gabba against New Zealand. If the latest reports are right he will only have played one club match for Bankstown in preparation; the last time he raised his bat in rancour will have been his one-legged one-upmanship at The Oval in August.

So who has made the greatest contribution to Australian batting since Bradman: Border or Waugh? It is a bit like debating whether you feel safer with Dunlop or Goodyear. Comparing size quickly proves deflating: in Tests, both average over 50, and both have totted up 27 centuries and more runs than George W Bush has eaten apple pies. In the pyjama caper, both average in the low thirties and have hit three hundreds, including one unforgettable masterpiece of the genre apiece: Waugh's 120 not out against South Africa in the 1999 World Cup, Border's 127 not out against West Indies in the first final of the 1984-85 World Series.

Both average more as captain than as a mere player. Both average considerably more abroad -- by 10.63 in Border's case, and 10.25 in Waugh's -- than at home. Both are ruthless when it comes to filling up on all-you-can-eat buffets from English pie-chuckers. Style and panache cannot split them either: on that count Peter Toohey beats them both hands-down.

It falls, like Perth millionaires counting their skyscrapers, to tally their matchwinning or game-saving innings and see who emerges on top. Between 1984 and 1986, Border singlehandedly saved Australia from defeat in four Tests: his 98 and 100 at Trinidad, both not out; his 146 not out at a murky Manchester; his phenomenal 163 out of 308 (including 77 for the last wicket with Dave Gilbert) against India; and his twin centuries at Christchurch three Tests later. To that can be added two momentous, and arguably matchwinning, solo efforts -- 196 at Lord's in 1985, 113 not out at Faisalabad in 1988 -- and two inspired losing hands, his 152 not out v New Zealand in 1985-86 and his 62 not out in the Boxing Day Ashes Test of 1982-83, when he and Jeff Thomson almost hoodwinked a last-wicket victory.

Waugh too has played several crucial innings, notably his 157 at Rawalpindi in 1998-99 and his 164 v South Africa in 1993-94. His 177 not out at Headingley in 1989 was a free-wheeling classic; 11 years later, his back-to-back hundreds against West Indies were virtually error-free. But only one Waugh innings -- his 200 at Sabina Park when Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy in 1994-95 -- matches up to Border's back-catalogue of epics. Even then, Australia won by an innings and 53 runs; Waugh, in theory, could have made a duck and they would still have got home.

Partly, Waugh is a victim of circumstances: a great prime minister should be rated a great prime minister, no matter how capable his deputies or how prosperous the times. But here's a telling stat. Border's record in the second innings of Tests when Australia trailed on the first innings was 2689 runs at 53.78; Waugh's is 788 runs at 29.19. Border, the man for a crisis, hit eight centuries under those circumstances; Waugh has made none.

That is why he still has some catching up to do. That is why, perhaps, he's so darn keen to play against the Kiwis.

Chris Ryan is managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age.

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