'The Oval didn't really happen, did it?' © Getty Images

You can't have it both ways. Either the Super Series one-dayers have been the most sodden of damp squibs or the ultimate symbol of Australia's supremacy. According to most independent observers (i.e.: not Australians) the damp squib option wins out. Australians take the polar opposite view. Indeed, Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer have gone further, accusing the World XI of making excuses.

"This side is as good a side as we have ever seen perhaps in cricket for me," Hayden says. "If we play well then I think we will beat anyone." Now, I've heard of positive thinking but what precisely did happen in the Ashes? It seems that history has been re-written already.

Hayden's "if we play well" comment sums up the Australians' view of their own ability. They are still in post-Ashes denial. They believe that it is within their power, and theirs alone, to influence the result of a match. The opposition doesn't come in to it. They find it inconceivable that their opponents can play to such a level as to affect the Australians' game.

It is as if the past four months never happened. Most of the Australian players insisted all the way through the Ashes that things would come right in the end. They did not. They lost and they lost because they were outplayed. The 2-1 scoreline did not reflect England's dominance, nor did the narrow margins of victory.

Hayden's mathematically-challenged support of Ricky Ponting (that he was "one billion per cent" behind his captain) is the cry of a desperate man trying to hold on to his place in the side. Hayden is remarkably fortunate to have retained his Test place while Damien Martyn was jettisoned.

Shane Warne's backing of Ponting was more equivocal: "He is his own man and he's done a pretty good job." Hardly a ringing endorsement, but a more honest and self-assured appraisal. Warne was about the only Australian player who acknowledged England's dominance in the Ashes and did not resort to excuses or self-justification.

Had Australia won the Ashes, they would surely not have tried to inject deep meaning into three one-day victories against a scratch side. They would have talked patronisingly about them as if they were warm-ups for more serious contests against West Indies and South Africa.

Maybe the Australians are just saying the right things to keep the sponsors and the ICC happy, but they have never worried too much about that in the past. Australians normally talk so much cricket sense that it is disconcerting to hear comments that indicate they were playing in a different game to the one everyone else was watching.

Do they really believe deep down that winning the Super Series one-dayers means anything? If they do, then they really are in denial.

John Stern is editor of The Wisden Cricketer.

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