Junior gets senior role

[Donny]

Mark Waugh gains captaincy role as Australia enters new season
Lynn McConnell - September 26, 2003

Australia might be moving into football finals madness over the next week - the AFL final in Melbourne tomorrow and the NRL final in Sydney on Sunday week, but cricket is muscling its way into public profile for the new season as well.

Sydneysiders will have a chance tomorrow to see how retired international Mark Waugh handles the responsibility of captaincy with the Bankstown club which has been the traditional home of cricket's most successful twins. The captaincy has been given to Mark because Steve Waugh has only the one game before leading Australia in the first Test against Zimbabwe starting in Perth on October 9.

While most other contenders for positions in the Test team will also be playing for their clubs, Glenn McGrath is going to be under constant review in the lead up to the Perth Test. His surgeon Martin Sullivan said yesterday that he was pleased with McGrath's recovery after ankle surgery in July during the Bangladesh series. He will be constantly monitored by Errol Alcott, the team physiotherapist, before a decision is made about whether he will play in Perth.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe players shouldn't be getting excited by the news that Steve Waugh's famous good luck charm, his red rag is starring in an exhibition of Sport: More than heroes and legends, at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum. Waugh was asked to place something in the exhibition and felt it was either the Baggy Green cap or the red rag, so chose the red rag or, and this is the bad news for Zimbabwe, a piece of it for display. It will be there alongside the inevitable Don Bradman bat, Harold Larwood's boots and Cathie Freeman's Olympic Games running suit.

There will still be a sizeable enough piece of the red rag in Waugh's pocket when he walks onto the WACA for the first Test starting on October 9. It has been part of Waugh's match apparel since the Headingley Test of the 1993 Ashes tour in which he scored 157 not out.