The song as well as the sights and sound that unravelled symbolised what the victory — their first in a Test in 10 months, the first since the sandpaper-gate scandal — meant for them. The crowd began singing the anthem.
Sometime during Australia’s tour of the Emirates, a former player-turned-commentator asked Justin Langer: “Hi Justin, who’s up to the team song? You or Nathan?” He was referring to Australia’s mythicised team song “Under the Southern Cross”, which Langer used to render in his playing days and now passed onto Nathan Lyon. The former player then bantered: “Anyway, it only matters when we are winning.” Langer, without losing cool, gave an acerbic reply: “Have you ever sung that in your life? We have and we will.”
The incident perfectly captured the choppy waters Australia were then wading through as well as the sense of togetherness that had bound the team after the tragedy. There was a sense of heightened despondency.
Four months later and five minutes after the first drinks break of the fifth morning, the song thundered in the spacious Optus Stadium. The song as well as the sights and sound that unravelled symbolised what the victory — their first in a Test in 10 months, the first since the sandpaper-gate scandal — meant for them. The crowd began singing the anthem.
After handshakes and hugs, the Australians were huddled near the edge of the boundary ropes. The inscrutably calm Langer was trying in vain to douse the inflammable celebrations of his charges. A few seconds ago, Mitchell Starc, a stump in hand, was sprinting around the ground, tailed by a portly man of the broadcast crew, pleading him to remove the mic entangled with the stumps.
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