Australia out, the Cup wide open

Often bullied in childhood (still, on occasion), Umpire's Post has unsuccessfully tried to gag its sigh of satisfaction every time a bully has fallen. But right now, it is doing cartwheels of joy. With less than three weeks to go before the World Cup kicks off on March 13, the Ugly Australians have come apart.

Mid-way through the tri-series also involving England and New Zealand, Australian coach John Buchanan was urging the opposition to give his boys a game. After losing four on the trot, and the Chappell-Hadlee series in New Zealand after two games, stand-in captain Hussey was saying that his team could not afford to panic. Now, that is a dead giveaway, as dead as any, that panic is setting in.

Sure enough, after losing the third match to New Zealand on Tuesday, Hussey said: "It's pretty difficult and I feel pretty demoralised really."

He has a ready excuse; some players are out due to injury or because they preferred to rest. However, Australia's big strength used to be that the replacements "" such as Brad Hogg and Andy Bichel for disgraced Warne and injured Gillespie at the last World Cup "" actually improved the collective performance.

The team has lost five ODIs in a row for the first time after 1997 and suffered its first 3-0 whitewash in a bilateral series since then. It has lost six of its last seven ODIs: the first three to the Poms, who had just suffered only the second Ashes white-wash in history, and the next three to New Zealand, the trans-Tasmanian neighbour that Australia treats as ungainly cousin.

Australia would certainly try to hit back with whatever is a stronger form of retribution than vengeance. Ponting and Michael Clarke will be

back for the World Cup and Gilchrist after a few games. But that will do nothing to strengthen the weak link: bowling.

Australia has conceded the four highest run chases in history, all in the last 12 months. Add to that the match at Perth when New Zealand came agonisingly close to the target of 343. In the first match of the Chappell-Hadlee series, they were beaten, for the first time, by the humiliating margin of 10 wickets.

Australia has begun to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as in the first final against England and in the third match in New Zealand. This used to be India's affliction, a team often derided as "soft" by

the Australians.

More than toppling Australia from the No. 1 perch, the results have blown apart the veneer of invincibility and convinced the other teams that Australia can be beaten. And that makes this World Cup more open than any since 1992.