Ashes 2013
England’s Rope-a-Dope Tactics Almost Pay
Off
August 26th
[09:00 CEST]
A series that was sometimes mundane, but mainly peculiar, ended in a suitably
bizarre way, with England dominating the final day, but just missing out on a
remarkable victory in fading light.
As suggested
yesterday, England’s tactic was to force Michael Clarke into making a mistake
in a desperate attempt to force victory. As Garry Sobers had in the 4th
Test at Port of Spain in 1968, Michael Clarke made a disastrous declaration,
leaving a straightforward target. Sobers was the first captain ever to lose
after declaring twice in a match and Michael Clarke came close to emulating
him. What made it worse for Garry Sobers was that his side had made 526-7d in
its first innings, obtaining a first innings lead of 122. The parallels were
remarkable with this match.
England came
out in the morning and scored 140 in 28 overs. Wickets were sacrificed as the
ball was hammered to all corners, particularly by Matt Prior, who had his best
innings of the series and Graeme Swann, with 34 from 24 balls. There was
increasing speculation that England would declare when the follow on was saved
and then, later, at lunch. After lunch England’s progress slowed, with only 27
coming off 46 balls before Graeme Swann provided James Faulkner with his fourth
wicket. Australia were challenged to score quick runs, but found it much harder
than England had, with wickets falling regularly to slow Australia’s progress.
Warner laboured to 12 from 28 balls, when Clarke must have hoped for much more.
The upshot was that, by Tea, Australia were probably about 40 short of the
total that Clarke was hoping for. It left England to score 227 in a maximum of
44 overs.
It was the
sort of situation where everything favours the batting side. Only had the chase
been 40 more and serious risks been needed to achieve it, there might have been
some danger but, even then, if you close up shop with 7 wickets down and 10
overs to go, you would hope to survive. No Test side should be bowled out in 44
overs on a flat and blameless pitch and the run-rate requested was the sort
that a side would expect to achieve 19 times out of 20 in a limited-overs match
with sensible batting. If England went for it, the only danger was if they lost
3 or 4 wickets early and cheaply. Once Australia’s new ball thrust had been
seen off, with only the loss of Root at 22, the chase could be made safely
without slogging.
While there
was a lot of talk of how generous Clarke’s declaration had been. In cricketing
terms “a generous declaration” is usually regarded as a euphemism for one that
has been disastrously miscalculated. Provided that the light held, it was a
chase that was always likely to be well within England’s grasp if they decided
to go for it. A lot of people thought that Cook’s perceived negative captaincy
would not allow England to accept the challenge. Whether or not a conscious
decision, England made a fast start and took 14 from the first two overs.
Despite the early loss of Joe Root, the run rate stayed close to what was
required and after 16 overs, a message came out with a drink and England
visibly shifted gear, taking 22 from the next two overs, with judicious placing
of the ball, before Cook fell in the only maiden over of the innings. From then
it was simply a matter of pushing the ball around, running the easy singles hard
to convert them into twos and hitting the bad ball to the boundary.
With the required
run rate never much over one a ball, it was always well under control. As the
last hour was entered with the required run rate only 5.5, only bad light was
ever going to deny England. Darren Lehmann had his standard haunted look that
has been seen so frequently in this series, as if hoping that the Prime
Minister would call and offer him his freedom from the position. Michael Clarke
had been looking worried from early in the chase, realising that the gamble was
not going to work. At this point the tempo of the game slowed radically: frequent
consultation with the bowler, field changes. Basically, what any captain would
have done in the same circumstances (and England famously did in the 1st
Test of the 2009 Ashes in Cardiff) to attempt to slow the game down and let the
light take its natural course, which it inevitably would, despite the
floodlights.
Briefly, as
KP and Trott fell in quick succession, the smile came back to Michael Clarke’s
face. Australia continued to fight hard, chase everything in the field and slow
things down, but there were just too many bad balls to keep the batsmen quiet,
allowing the run/ball equation to stay well in check. Umpire Dharmansena
appeared to warn Shane Watson that he would call him if he continued to bowl
well down leg side (this was a tactic that Trevor Bailey used famously to save
a Test in the 1953 series and, later, England in India to stifle Sachin
Tendulkar). Chris Woakes batted with great calm and maturity and, in this
series, Ian Bell has usually needed to be dynamited from the crease. Every run
was raucously received by a crowd who felt that victory was just a formality.
When Ian
Bell fell to a piece of lightning reaction from Mitchell Starc the light meter
came out. At that point England were cruising and probably would have finished
the match in two more overs. The reading was found to be as dark as when bad
light had ended play on the 3rd Day and that was that: the rules
allowed no flexibility in the decision to take the players off, despite the
fact that there are plenty of matches that have ended later and in worse light.
The umpires have to be fair to both sides and no one questions that it was
dark, but there was a fundamental difference between going off for bad light
mid-Test and going off at the climax of a match when fast bowlers were still
able to operate and only a few minutes more are needed to bring a positive
result. Both sides knew the rules and, on this occasion, they clearly favoured
the fielding side but, that’s life.
Whether or
not those rules made sense or not is something that the administrators have to
decide. Many people felt that a common-sense approach should have been used and
the match played out (maybe the umpires could have said at a certain point “we
will allow you 2 more overs”, so that both sides knew where they stood), but
Australia would have been furious if play had continued in increasingly bad
light and they had gone on to lose.
There was a
feeling of relief in some circles that Michael Clarke would not be punished with
defeat for a totally misjudged declaration. However, that was the risk that he
took when declaring: you have to accept that you must face defeat to have a
chance to win. It all seemed a little ludicrous, when England had scored 346
runs at 5.04 runs per over in the day, compared to Australia’s 111 at 4.82 and
had thrown down the gauntlet to the Australians, to credit Australia with
having made all the running through the day, particularly on a wicket where
both sides had found fast scoring difficult (Australia had being scoring at 3.3
per over until the fall of Watson in the 1st innings).
It is not
the first time and will not be the last that a game will end this way, with
paying public and millions of TV viewers feeling deeply dissatisfied with the
way that the game ended.
Some people
have suggested that the umpires could have changed to a white ball, but that is
not permitted under the playing regulations, which would have required a
parallel change to black sightscreens to make it possible.
It was an
unfortunate end to an extraordinary day of cricket, played in a fantastic
atmosphere, but it did demonstrate that the players were able to rise above the
turgid play earlier in the match (England’s go-slow was not helped by some
negative bowling), even though there is some real bitterness between the two
sides about some of the events of the series.
3-0 feels
about right. 
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