Brilliant Finch Applies A Fig Leaf To Australian Cricket

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Brilliant from Australia’s Men and England’s Women

 

August 30^th

  

[09:00 CEST] Sometimes you come up against a performance so gigantic, so extraordinary, that it defies belief. Aaron Finch did not just break the record for the highest score in a T20 international, he totally atomised it, scoring 62.9% of his side’s runs as Australia won their first international match in any format since February. England’s collective fifth bowler (Bopara, Root and Wright) went for 69 runs in 4 overs. Finch was utterly brilliant as he showed that T20 is the format where a single player can win a match on his own.

The bad news for Australia was that even a gigantic score of 248 and reducing England to 42-4 was, in the end, barely enough, as Joe Root and Ravi Bopara first righted he ship and then put England into a position where they were in with a real chance with 7 overs to go. It was only the loss of Bopara, followed by a tight 14^th over by Fawad Ahmed, that went for just 8 runs, that killed off England’s challenge, when a big over could just have tilted the balance. The previous 4 balls had gone for 17 runs, but were followed by 4 dot balls, including the wicket and Australia, who were just beginning to look a little rattled, saw their nerves settled again: the next 17 runs took 14 balls to arrive and the moment was lost by England.

Ahmed’s figures of 0-43 were not spectacular, but the Australian bowlers were consistent while, for England, only Jade Dernbach’s 3-34 was respectable in a match that produced 457 runs in 40 overs. Joe Root’s 90 from 49 balls showed England what they have been missing by playing him as an opener in the Tests and Ravi Bopara showed, once again, that he is a dangerous player for England in the short formats.

Despite Australia’s dominance in this game, one is left with the feeling that unless Australia can produce something else spectacular, this may prove to be an isolated moment of success, as this was really an individual performance, not backed up by anyone else.

Those spectators who had arrived early had a real treat as, in a display of inventiveness not common in English cricket, the match at the Rose Bowl was played as a double-header, with the ladies playing first in what was their Ashes decider.

Having looked to be heading to likely defeat at the half way point in the Test, which would have made winning the Ashes almost impossible, England sealed the series 11-5 with one match to play, having utterly dominated the last four games. It had all looked unlikely in the Test at 113-6, chasing Australia’s 331-6. However, from this bad position where the follow-on had looked almost certain, they had come back strongly and, for a time on the final morning, Australia were even under real pressure. From then on the series has been almost one-way traffic. Australia won the first ODI, but then lost the next two and the first T20, leaving England only needing victory at the Rose Bowl to win the Ashes.

A collapse from 95-2 with almost 5 overs remaining to 127-7 had left England a target of 128 to seal the Ashes with a game to go.  Despite a poor start, 80 from 64 balls by Lydia Greenway took England to a what was ultimately a comfortable win.

Sadly, rather than be presented with the Ashes at the end of the matches at Chester-le-Street on Saturday, with a full house cheering to the echo, England’s women will receive the trophy in a low-key ceremony at 10am, long before the double-header even starts, in front of empty stands. It would be nice to think that there will be a re-think of this as the team deserves to be cheered by a full house, not to have the ceremony hidden away.

While Australia have had their moments during the series, the fact that they pace spearhead, Ellyse Perry who, not so long ago, it was being boasted would blow England’s men away, let alone their women, took just 2 wickets for 229 in the six matches was a key issue. Jonassen, Osborne and Coyte took plenty of wickets, but lacked support, with no one else taking more than three in the series. For England, the runs of Sarah Taylor and Heather Knight have been backed up by an attack that shared the wickets around. For Australia it is a story familiar from their men: too many collapses and a lack of support for the main wicket-taking spearhead.

In an Ashes summer where, between the men and the women, the collective score is England 7-1 Australia, Aaron Finch has applied a fig leaf to Australian cricket but, even if Australia’s men do salvage some pride in the remaining matches, it has still been a bad summer for them and all the spin in the world cannot hide it.