Some Myths And Legends About The 2013 Ashes Explored

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Myths and Legends

 

August 28^th

 

[09:00 CEST] The just finished Ashes series has generated all kinds of myths and legends, some of them propagated by people who should know better. Let’s have a look at a few of them.

1.       The excellence of the Australian attack

One of the widest spread myths is that the Australian attack was generally excellent and possibly even superior to the England attack. There is no question that it featured the stand-out bowler of the series, but the back-up to him was inferior to England’s consistent attack. The strike rate through the series is a good way of judging bowling attacks. Qualification: minimum 2 Tests and 40 overs bowled.

Ryan Harris	Australia	40.5
Stuart Broad	England	50.6
Tim Bresnan	England	54.6
James Anderson	England	56.0
Graeme Swann	England	57.4
Mitchell Starc	Australia	65.4
Peter Siddle	Australia	67.0
James Pattinson	Australia	78.1
Nathan Lyon	Australia	78.7
Ashton Agar	Australia	252.0
Shane Watson	Australia	256.5

While Australia had a clear attack leader and more modest support, there was no clear attack leader for England, as all the bowlers came in with very similar performances in terms of strike rate over the series. The England attack had a pack mentality, rather than being “follow my leader”, which was one of the reasons for its success. With England having the next four best bowlers in terms of strike rate, the difference between the attacks is obvious: England's threat was consistent, even when the change bowlers were on. If you rode out Australia's strike bowler, what followed was less threatening, particularly when it came to the second change.

2.       The Australian batting was better overall because it made the big scores

Australia made the only two scores over 400 in the series, but the England batting was far more consistent, scoring 300+ on six occasions and managing a 300+ total in every Test.  The ten highest team totals in the series were:

Australia	527-7d	3rd Test
Australia	492-9d	5th Test
England	377	5th Test
England	375	1st Test
England	368	3rd Test
England	361	2nd Test
England	349-7d	2nd Test
England	330	4th Test
Australia	296	1st Test
Australia	280	1st Test

Only in the 1^st Test, which Australia actually lost, did they manage to score 250+ twice in a Test. England scored 350+ in every Test except the 4^th.

3.       It was only Michael Clarke’s efforts that made the final day of the 5^th Test interesting

Michael Clarke’s declaration set up the finish, but could not have happened without England’s contribution in the morning.

·         England scored 130 runs for 6 wickets in 28.4 overs at 4.53 runs per over to set up the challenge

·         Australia replied with  111-6d in 23 overs at 4.82 runs per over

·         England chased with 206-5 in 40 overs at 5.15 runs per over.

Had the England lower order not thrown down the gauntlet by sacrificing wickets chasing quick runs, Australia’s thrash after lunch would never have happened. Most pundits expected England to bat on and make a token declaration around Tea.

4.       The gap between the two teams was smaller than expected

This is an interesting one. There is a great deal of statistical evidence that England only ever shifted out of second gear when significantly challenged. One classic case was at Chester-le-Street, when the threat that Australia would chase down 299 stirred England to play probably their best cricket of the series to date, reaching a level that would not be equalled until the final day at The Oval.

The clearest evidence that England were struggling for motivation at times though is the batting. In the first four Tests, with the series live, England lost their first two or three wickets very cheaply on all but two occasions. The correlation between England’s start and their final total makes interesting reading:

	Start (or score at 100)	Final Total
1st Test, 2nd innings	11-2	375
3rd Test, 1st innings	64-3	368
2nd Test, 1st innings	28-3	361
2nd Test, 2nd innings	30-3	349-7d
4th Test, 2nd innings	49-3	330
4th Test, 1st innings	100-1	238
1st Test, 1st innings	100-2	215

Only twice in the series did England have what you could call a reasonably solid start, passing 50 with fewer than two wickets down while the series was live and those were the only two occasions in the entire series that England failed to reach 250. It required the batsmen to feel challenged by Australia and the adrenaline rush of a bad start to get the side to shift into top gear.

When England were not feeling sufficiently threatened, they simply stayed in second gear and cruised. It was not deliberate, it was just the psychological need to feel really threatened to come out and perform at their best. When England had the motivation to step up their game, the difference between the sides widened considerably.

The impression that ne gets from some of these numbers is that there is much more to come from England, but only if Australia pose a much greater challenge this winter on home soil than they have done on English soil.