Michael Clarke, England's Man Of The Match??

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Bat first and win… however implausible?

 

December 27^th 2013

 
 

Many England supporters will have watched or listened to the collapse at the start of play that confirmed their worst nightmares and gone to bed, depressed. Those who stayed a while longer will have seen how Australia’s top order struggled before lunch and will have wondered if maybe, just maybe, 255 was a better score than it looked. What no one was prepared for was Australia to collapse in the evening like a card house, leaving England still 91 ahead, with just Nathan Lyon to accompany Brad Haddin, who continues to battle on.

Finally, through either trial and error, or just blind luck, England have found the ideal attack for a Test. The absence of Graeme Swann was irrelevant because a spinner was irrelevant: Monty Panesar bowled just 9 overs, albeit for only 18 runs. Anderson weaved his magic as he had at the start of last summer. Stuart Broad blasted out the tail with raw aggression. Tim Bresnan found reverse swing, took two vital wickets and conceded just 24 runs from 18 overs. And Ben Stokes continued to develop at a ridiculous rate, showing the sceptics such as me who doubted that he would be effective yet at this level, just how wrong we were.

The plan has been to bowl tightly and make the batsmen commit errors. Unfortunately, the Australians have not cooperated and the batsmen have not got the runs to pressurise them. England’s highest first innings score of the series looked far from enough but, as so often in this series, the experts have completely misread the pitch which, it has become obvious, is a very hard one to bat on unless the batsman has an incredible boredom threshold. The England attack kept to a plan and the Australians duly threw away their wickets. A relatively healthy 110-3 became a decidedly anemic 164-9.

While Brad Haddin is still there, Australia will hope to keep the deficit below 50. Stuart Broad though will have three balls at Nathan Lyon and will hope to end the innings with them, having taken two wickets in his last four balls.

Once again, the side that has batted first has dominated the Test (at least, so far). If England were to win, maybe Michael Clarke should be their man of the match for putting England in?