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It is a truism of sport that every match contains the previous match. Not in its conditions, venue or the atmosphere, but in the minds of the combatants. This fact is inescapable for Australia, no matter how much the team claims to have moved on from events in Cape Town. Michael Clarke's team is about to take the field in the wake of Australia's most traumatic Test defeat, in terms of a dominant position surrendered, since Kolkata 2001.
The psyche of this team is rather more fragile than that of Steve Waugh's men, recalling that of the Kim Hughes-led XI that stumbled to another infamous defeat at Headingley in 1981. In each case, the impact of the loss carried over into the next Test, and ultimately proved decisive in the loss of the series.