And they thought the world would end when Mark Taylor retired...

Steve Waugh's leadership of the Australians may well personify the words of American football coach Lou Holtz in the first of the quotes: "The man who wins may have been counted out several times but he didn't hear the referee."

While England, for all their positive vibes after four series wins are in danger of living out golfer Sam Snead's line, "Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits."

The Australians, under the leadership of Waugh, who has effected such an outstanding record of his own when it seemed a near impossible task to follow in the footsteps of Mark Taylor, absorbed the Indian losses for what they were, the wrong end of the greatest Test series in modern cricket.

England, on the other hand, read too much into their series wins against teams on the lower rungs of the Test ladder.

Australia has made such a science of winning that it has become a thoroughly ingrained habit, making it the very devil of an opponent to contain.

Under any normal circumstances the Australians were not going to buckle as the result of their failure to win the Indian series.

And these are not normal circumstances.

These are the Waugh years. They are not just a happy coincidence. They have happened for a reason. They will not be easily undone.

They are the product of humiliation, of defeat, of loss of form. But they are also the triumph of learning, of understanding, of moulding, nurturing and rebuilding the icon that is Australian cricket.

Waugh knows what Nasser Hussain and his players feel like. He has been there, at a similar stage of development with the Australian team.

His Test career started against India in matches sandwiched between an Australian side in the process of losing home and away Test series with New Zealand! New Zealand!

To an Aussie losses don't come any harder.

The next summer he was a member of an Australian team that lost the Ashes at home. That's not "at home" as Antipodeans of yore used to refer to Mother England. That's "at home" on the sunburnt soil of Australia.

As lessons go, or as Holtz would say, those were two significant knockout blows.

But Waugh, and Australia, didn't hear the referee.

He might have taken 42 innings and 26 Tests before recording his first Test century, but he hasn't made a bad fist of it since then.

Already he has scored more of his Test centuries, eight, against England than any other country.

The fact that the West Indies, against whom he has scored six, are next on the list says something of the relish for the fight in Waugh.

Curtly Ambrose may have dismissed Waugh 11 times, that's more than twice as often as any other bowler has achieved, but Waugh has extracted his revenge with 1966 runs at 47.95 against the West Indies.

In the West Indies his figures of 870 runs at 66.92 are even more impressive. This is a player who relishes the challenge.

The difference England must consider is how many players they have seen through a similar number of innings and matches, and how many they have discarded?

The possibilities before Waugh's career is ended are many. He is the third player to have passed 9000 runs in Test history.

All going well, he must be targetting the 2003 World Cup in South Africa for his grand hurrah.

If that is the case, he is going to be on song again for Australia in another Ashes series in 2002/03.

By that time he could have gone beyond the 10,000 mark, beyond Sunil Gavaskar on 10122, with his former captain through those hard years, Allan Border, the only man in front with his 11,174 runs.

Would it be too much to expect that in the next 18 months he could possibly score another nine centuries to have more in his possession than any other Test player?

It could be that he faces a severe challenge from one Sachin Tendulkar who, in 84 Tests, is sitting on 25 centuries.

For a player sufficiently au fait with cricket history these are details that will not have escaped him.

But more than that, it is the continuing development of the team that he has around him that marks Australia, and Steve Waugh, as continuing dominators on the world stage.

Brett Lee on the lookout for more victims of his pace, Shane Warne looking for 400 and more Test wickets, Michael Slater looking for the mantle as one of the greatest opening batsmen, Glenn McGrath applying the guile that comes with experience to long-serving faster bowlers, Adam Gilchrist rocking the foundations on which stand the great wicket-keeper batsmen, the list goes on.