Ashes 2013
Deja vú (II)
August 13th
[09:00 CEST]
Yesterday, England started the day in a curiously similar position to Australia
at the start of Day 3: England were 234-5, Australia had been 222-5; the new
ball was due in 6 overs both mornings; Australia had Rogers 101*, England had
Bell 105*; Watson had fallen late to bring in Haddin, Bairstow fell late on to
bring in Bresnan. There, the similarities ended and, with them, Australia’s
chances of clawing back in this series.
For
Australia hopes of reaching 300 and putting the foot on the throat had ended
before the new ball. England survived the six overs with the old ball
confidently enough, before Ryan Harris was tossed the new cherry and, once again,
showed that if he had better back-up, Australia would not be losing this
series. However, England replied with a lesson out of Harris’s batting playbook
and, first Stuart Broad, then Tim Bresnan and, finally, Graeme Swann swung with
great effect. Whereas Australia had added just 48 for the loss of 5 wickets the
previous morning, 28 of them to Harris, England added 96 at a furious pace,
Bresnan, Broad and Swann managing 15 boundaries and tucking into Jackson Bird’s
gentle medium pace with great enthusiasm.
The result
was 330 all out and a target of 299 for Australia. Dress it up however you
want, but not many sides make 300 to win in the 4th innings of a
Test. Unless someone made a century, it was always going to be too many (my
guess yesterday was that 240 would be enough for England to win… just).
Lest one
think, as some did, that 299 to win in a little over 5 sessions would be easy,
with no pressure to score quickly (some fans were suggesting that England had
played Santa Claus and had handed the match to Australia on a silver platter),
the BBC had an amazing statistic. Before today, since April 2006 Australia had
been set 200 or more to win 13 times. Only once had they reached the target and
then, only just. Nine of those chases had ended in defeat. One should not have thought
that this was an easy chase and the fact that as time was not an issue, meant
that there could only be a positive result, unless something really remarkable
happened: Australia could only win or lose, raising the stakes for a team short
of self-belief.
The result
was a manic chase. Whereas almost everyone expected the match to end one way or
another some time around lunch on Day 5, no one had imagined, even half an hour
before the scheduled Close, that it might end with England claiming the extra
half hour and barely needing it.
One thing
that I never understand is how, when things are not going well on the field of
play, the fans react with some quite amazing knee-jerk reactions. “Drop the
lot!” seems to be a standard reaction to any setback, even temporary and this
in a series that England were leading 2-0. Mid-afternoon, when things were not
going right: edges were just eluding fielders, balls that beat the bat were
missing the stumps and the magic was just not quite there, one angry fan
suggested that England should make wholesale changes for the 5th
Test and that only Bell was worth his place at The Oval. A more reasoned
approach was that sooner or later Australia would try one shot too many, or
just run out of luck and, if they did not and the approach worked, good luck to
them: they would have deserved their victory.
One thing
that we have seen is that Australia have not coped with pressure in this
series. Even at Old Trafford, with a huge first innings lead, they collapsed in
the second innings trying to set a challenging target and we will never know if
they could have followed through with their new ball start as England tried to
save the Test.
Yesterday, even
at 120-1, with Australia looking comfortable, there was a feeling – at least in
people with longer memories – that it would only take one wicket to introduce
the jitters and two to start a collapse. There was a desperate, all-or-nothing,
approach to the chase that threatened wild changes in momentum. In the first
innings two deliveries from Graeme Swann suddenly changed the match situation.
In the second innings here, Graeme Swann took Rogers and Khawaja and, suddenly,
Australia lost all confidence in their ability to win. Tim Bresnan then added
Warner’s wicket – what a comeback he is having when, before the series,
Australian fans were begging England to pick him. Despite the mauling at Old
Trafford, Tim Bresnan has ten wickets at under 30 so far, often chipping in
with vital strikes and doing an essential support role. Once again he took a vital
wicket and Australia surrendered. From 168-2 it was left to some tail-end
defiance to get Australia past the 200.
The
headlines will be for Stuart Broad who showed why England persist with him even
when it looks as if he has lost it. Once Swann and Bresnan had made an opening
he surged through it. Suddenly, after averaging 50 before this Test, he is top
of the England bowling averages with 17 wickets at 25.4 and satisfies the
all-rounder criterion by averaging 28.3 with the bat despite a quiet Test when
padded-up. 6-50 in the innings, 11-121 in the match. Job done. Thanks for the
game Australia.
What Ryan
Harris has thought of all this is a matter for speculation. In this series he
has twice bowled the largest number of balls that he has ever bowled in a Test. For
first time ever he has played three consecutive Tests without breaking down. He
has bowled like a demon and taken 20 wickets at 19.3 and has seen his side go
3-0 down. Time and time again Ryan Harris has blasted through the top order
only to see the support bowling release the pressure. Yesterday morning, when
Australia just needed one batsman to keep his head to build up a lead, Harris
scored more runs than Rogers, Haddin, Siddle, Lyon and Bird put together, making
28 of the 48 runs added. He did it applying the same judicious hitting that
England were to find so effective twenty-four hours later. Within an hour of
the start of play, poor Harris was back out again, putting the fear of god into
England’s top three, only to see the position slip away… again.
Whereas the
England bowlers had wrapped up the Australian tail quickly after the two
overnight batsmen were out, Harris apart, England’s tail found the bowling all
too friendly. Peter Siddle started the series well, but has run out of steam,
while Jackson Bird’s medium pace – he was in the low 80s mph, as he had been at
the end of the first innings, making him eminently hittable and, when he tried
to bowl faster as the tail swung at him, lost his accuracy too – had to be
removed from the attack as Tim Bresnan hammered him for first 9 and then 14 in
an over.
This then
became the fourteenth time that Australia have been set a target of over 200 to
win a Test since April 2006 and the tenth time that they have lost. When you
carry that kind of albatross around your neck, you do not expect to win, even
when the odds seem stacked in your favour. England just had to be patient and
prey on that insecurity.
For England,
that final Test at The Oval may be a dead rubber but, if they win it, they will
overtake India and go back to #2 in the ICC Test rankings. Australia will slump
to 99 points and drop back to 5th, staying just ahead of the West
Indies on the decimals and will then drop to 6th if England win the
return series this winter by two or more Tests.
No comments:
Post a Comment