The Vodafone Test Series against India was an outstanding success for all of us and the players need to take a huge amount of credit for what they achieved.
The preparation and the intensity of the training sessions paved the way for our success.
The players were preparing at the same intensity at which they were playing and that is why, when the big situations in games presented themselves, we were able to take them and keep India under enormous amounts of pressure.
My catchphrase this whole series was "patience builds pressure and pressure equals wickets”.
How the players embraced this was amazing, and I like to think we got our rewards because of our attention to detail and attitude to preparation.
It has been slightly disappointing to see media focussed on how bad India were rather than how disciplined we had been.
I certainly like to think you can only play as well as your opponents let you.
The bowling department is looking very exciting at the moment, this is on the back of some wonderful performances this summer.
We have certainly managed to create the depth we wanted.
When you think the likes of Pattinson, Cummins, Bollinger and Watson are in recovery and Starc is waiting in the wings for another opportunity, it is very exciting.
I thought our bowlers' ability to execute our game plans and stick to that plan was the hallmark of our success.
The presence and aggression that the bowlers showed was also very pleasing.
In the batting department, we were fantastic as well.
Especially captain Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting.
The batting unit (when I say the batting unit I mean batsmen 1-6) challenges themselves to get 300 runs every time they go to the wicket.
They achieved this in most of the innings we batted in.
This allows our bowlers to bowl with a lot more freedom and puts the opposition batters under a huge amount of scoreboard pressure, especially if you are getting your runs in the first innings.
In Warner and Cowan I think we have a opening partnership that could develop into something very special, and when you add Mike Hussey and Shaun Marsh in I believe we have a very good top six.
A word on Shaun Marsh, he is one of the most talented batsmen that I have had the pleasure of working with and this little run of failures will only make him stronger.
I have no doubt that he will score many runs for Australia in his career.
When you throw in a performing Brad Haddin and Watson, Khawaja, Hughes, Forrest, Ferguson and there are many others our Test team starts looking very good indeed.
I am very excited to see how our T20 and ODI teams perform, as I sit and write this we have just finished a very tough session with our T20 boys and they all came through it very well.
It is a team made up of guys who performed very well in the KFC T20 Big Bash League and are all ready to grab the opportunity with both hands!
We have also picked a few different faces in the ODI team and that always helps to refresh the team.
From a personal point of view, I can't be more happy with the start I have had with the Australian cricket team.
The players and the public have embraced all that I have wanted to achieve, and for that I will always be grateful.
During the Adelaide Test match Brad Haddin presented me with a t-shirt to be worn every time we win and have our celebration, it has all the verses of True Blue on the back and Aussie Mickey on the front!
I was very flattered when I received that shirt, it symbolises acceptance into the Australian culture and made me very proud.
Hopefully next time I write we will have won the KFC T20 games and have kicked our Commonwealth Bank ODI series off well.
Till next time ……
Mickey.
