What they don't teach you at the Australian Cricket Academy

A point worth making when it is obvious, because it will be quickly forgotten.

Cricket schools, and more generally, cricket systems, don't produce great cricket teams. They do produce good teams. The vital gap between good and great is, unfortunately, something that can't be taught at school.

The reason this is worth remembering is that the Australian cricket system, including the Australian Cricket Academy, got a lot of credit for Australia's domination of world cricket through the 90s and the early 2000s. Even at this dark moment for Australia, when the talent cupboard is looking bare, the system is working as well as it ever was.

The system - the ACA, the first class structure, grade cricket, schools cricket, talent scouts, sports science, the whole shebang - just ensures that Australian cricket is competitive, that standards never go into free fall like in the Windies. The Aussie system is very good, but not fundamentally different from the cricket systems in England, India or South Africa.

What made the Border-Taylor-Waugh cricketing dynasty was not the Aussie system, but a bunch of exceptional players.