Fanie de Villers in full flight. Fanie de Villers in full flight. Images: Getty Images

Given that, were you surprised by the atmosphere of goodwill on this recent tour? 

Not really. I think the moment you trust yourself and your game, you’re more relaxed. I must admit that on the tours after our tour in ’94, the bowlers weren’t good enough to win games. Over the past decade, every single tour that came our way, myself and a couple of guys would analyse how many wickets certain players were worth. And we never could get past 14 or 15 wickets. We knew we were going to get a hiding in Australia because the bowlers weren’t there; Shaun Pollock didn’t have the back-up he should’ve had. And that made it hard. When a team comes touring knowing they have a 20 per cent chance – perhaps less – of taking 20 wickets, it creates pressure. But the moment you’re a good team, and you know you can win a series – because you’ve got the bowlers, the batsmen, everything – you’ll play a better game of cricket when it comes to the social side of it. And that’s what the boys have got now.And yes, also there’s the factor of county cricket and the IPL, where the boys know each other so much better, they’ve got a couple of mates playing on the other side. That plays a big role, too. When we started we didn’t know anything. We’d never even said hello to these guys.

Were you surprised at how toothless the Australian bowling attack was? 

Not really, and I’m not even saying that tongue-in-cheek, because I’m a firm believer that you guys had a 50-60 per cent advantage before every match started purely because of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. The Aussie public, the Aussie selectors, the Aussie system have been spoilt tremendously to have two players like that. And I’m telling you now, without those two, 50-60 per cent of your team is not there. That’s a fact. I can prove it to you with stats, I can prove it to you with attitude, I can prove it with anything you want. You guys have carried players over the years because those two have won you Test matches. Without them, everybody has to pull their weight, everybody’s under pressure to take the wickets. For example, remember how we used to carry Jacques Kallis? In his 14th Test match he made his first 50. So we carried him for a long time. The poor bloke was nearly in tears sometimes, but we kept telling him, “My boy, you’ve got the potential, you’ve got the shots, you know what you look like in the nets. Just keep going. You’re going to get runs.” But we could only look after him because we were winning Test matches. I would like to know how many players the likes of Warne and McGrath looked after in the system, and gave them more games than they would otherwise get because the team was winning. It’s amazing the influence those two guys have had on your system – I would’ve taken on you guys anytime without Warne and McGrath. It would’ve been a walk in the park when it came to attitude.

Dale Steyn took a swag of wickets over here with his late swing, and yet there doesn’t appear to be a fast bowler in the Aussie team capable of swinging the new ball. Why?

Swinging is an art, and the art comes in if you’re lucky enough to be born with a wrist that is cocked just before delivery. You get two types of swing bowlers. One who changes the ball in his hands, seam towards the slips so the ball can swing; and the other one who holds the ball right on the seam but cocks his wrist to the left and so delivers the ball pointing to second slip. But often, with pace, that wrist cock goes. So you get, say, Allan Donald, who could bowl outswing when he was trotting in, but the moment he started bowling quick, his head fell away and everything else, including his wrist, pointed towards middle stump. So he lost that swing. Dale Steyn has the ability to keep that wrist position and swing the ball late. He’s a cock-wrist swing bowler. And that makes a huge difference. It’s just luck of the draw to find a guy like that, then you need clever selectors to target that guy and say, “We’re going to make you part of our system at any cost.” So you can’t point fingers. Cock-wrist swing bowling is a special commodity. If it comes your way, you’re lucky.