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The reality ended up being consistent with the Australian player's view that it would be a three to nil whitewash in their favour. What this showed, in stark terms, was the gap between the number one and two teams of the era.
Since that time, however, the equation may have slightly shifted. Following the Australians inability to secure a finals berth in the one-day series against New Zealand and South Africa, the selectors reasserted their authority.
After taking the hard decision on Ian Healy, the continued success of the team prolonged any consideration of retiring either of the aging Waugh brothers. The selectors have now axed Stephen Waugh from the one-day captaincy and squad. In doing so they expressed the hope that the move would prolong his Test career, as they did when they axed Mark Taylor from one-day cricket.
However, the selectors have not yet named the squad for the one-day series to follow the Test series. Rumour abounds that Mark Waugh, Shane Warne and others may no longer be selected for the short version of the game. Further, the selectors have included Darren Lehmann in the test squad after he forced his way into consideration through weight of domestic runs. The brittle middle order, which was exposed by New Zealand and South Africa in the last four months, has effectively been put on notice.
The net result is that many of the players in the Test squad are now starting to look over their shoulders and the uncertainty could not be helping as they prepare for the Tests against South Africa. The effects of such uncertainty have, in the past by many teams, shown up as dropped catches in pressure situations, bad decision making in the heat of the moment and the like. These are the sort of things that have made the Australians the best team of the modern era.
How the Australian team copes with this will be a measure of their greatness or otherwise. It would be a foolish person who wrote them off now. Australia should still win this series, but perhaps not by the three nil margin they achieved last time around.
South Africa, for their part, appears to have sorted out their own selection problems that were exposed before the Sydney Test in January. At that time, the president of the United Cricket Board overruled the selectors and included another player of colour in the final eleven.
The major hurdle appears to be the fitness of their captain Shaun Pollock. He and Justin Ontong have been ruled out of the first Test and it is likely the South Africans will struggle. If Australia is allowed to take over from where they left off in Sydney then South Africa could be in deep trouble - regardless of Pollock's availability later in the series.
On a head to head basis, Australia holds a slight advantage. Since 1992, Australia has not lost any of their five Test series to South Africa. Australia has won 8, lost 3 and drawn 4 Tests in this time.
South Africa has not defeated Australia in a Test since the third Test in March 1997 at Centurion. Australia is the only touring team to have defeated South Africa in their own back yard since South Africa was readmitted to Test cricket in 1992.
From a ratings perspective, Australia enters this series in first place and must win the series to improve upon their rating. Australia presently holds its third highest rating in history and the current team could set a new Australian record if they concede no more than one draw to South Africa in this series. A second series whitewash would see Australia move up to the second highest rating by any nation of 1231 points (behind Sir Vivian Richards' West Indians with 1236 points). Regardless of how badly Australia fares in this series, the 77-point advantage they hold over South Africa will ensure they remain in first position.
South Africa can improve their rating if they at least draw this series. Owing to the large gap up to Australia and down to third placed Pakistan, South Africa will remain in second place regardless of how the series ends.
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