Cricket: Desperate vs the disparate

On one side you will have 11 wounded cricketers, reeling from an unprecedented barrage of criticism, playing for personal and patriotic pride, determined in front of their home crowd to prove they are still the No 1 cricket nation in the world.

On the other you have a collection of talented individuals brought together under a coach (John Wright) for whom just two of his players have played, a one-day captain (Shaun Pollock) who doesn't even captain his country any more, and a test captain (Graeme Smith) who has shown fragility as a leader.

It's the desperate versus the disparate and that, you would think, will provide only one winner.

The ICC has a lot riding on this Super Series which begins in Melbourne under the Telstra Dome roof on Wednesday. The three one-dayers and one six-day test are touted as a festival of cricket but cannot be played in a festival spirit.

Somehow the World XI must find a collective cause that drives them to match Australia. They don't have patriotism to fall back on like Australia. There'll be no kissing of the badge when one of them scores a century, no laps of honour with flags trailing if they win a one-dayer.

Wright recognised this when he said: "People are going to have to start playing for each other, playing together as a team and enjoying it."

It seems the only motivating force that will allow the World XI a semblance of equal footing is embarrassment.

Nobody wants to be picked for such an auspicious occasion only to flop in front of the eyes of a watching world. Daniel Vettori doesn't want to look up to the Telstra Dome scoreboard and see 10-0-70-0 besides his name, and Brian Lara doesn't want to scratch around and look foolish against a country he normally reserves his best for.

But that's where the motivation ends for the World XI and where it begins for Australia.

They've already been embarrassed, first by Bangladesh in England and then by becoming the first team in 18 years to lose an Ashes series.

For them this is not a showcase series; it is a race for redemption.

"I've been looking forward to this for a long time," Ponting said. "After, I guess, the disappointment of the Ashes tour for us, this is our next chance to prove to ourselves and prove to everybody that we're a very good team. Let's not forget we're the No 1 ranked side for a reason. Our performances over a long period of time have ensured we were No 1 and still are No 1."

But that's half the problem: many don't believe it's the case anymore. It's why, paradoxically, the Ashes result was the best thing for world cricket and the worst thing for the ICC. It was meant to pit the world's No 1 team against the best of the rest, but many people believe the best team in the world will have just three representatives in Australia: Andrew Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen and Steve Harmison.

Much of the World XI's hopes rest upon the broad Lancastrian shoulders of "Freddie" Flintoff.

The ICC, the fans and John Wright in particular, can only hope these were the words of a beer-soaked reveller and not a self-fulfilling prophecy when Flintoff said, after England's Ashes win: "The Super Series is the worst prospect imaginable."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY