Ashes 2017/18: 1st Test, Day 5 - Accepting the Inevitable

 

Ashes 2017/18: 1^st Test, Day 5

Accepting the Inevitable

November 28^th 2017

Australia duly sealed a 10 wicket win that probably flattered them somewhat. It is tempting to think that all is doom and gloom, but there is no reason why it should be so as England have a real chance to level the series in the 2^nd Test.

We tend to forget that the 2005 Ashes started with a heavy defeat after a bright start by England. Of course, in that series, England’s cause was helped by Glenn McGrath trying to unicycle on the ball an hour before the start of the 2^nd Test and by the lack of credible support to McGrath and Shane Warne. However, it is easy to forget that England were blown away for 155 & 180 in that 1^st Test and in three of their first four innings of the series, failed to pass 182. England’s luck was that they just sneaked home in two of the Tests and that Brett Lee, though a big wicket-taker in the series, took his wickets at well over 40 each, while Shaun Tate, Mike Kasprowicz and Jason Gillespie combined for 12 wickets at more than 63 each. It was only as the series progressed that Australia’s problems of squad depth became more and more evident.

The key was that, despite a very disappointing 1^st Test performance, England kept the faith, trusted their players and took their chances.

If any pitch on this tour is going to suit the England attack, it will be Adelaide. Lose here and it will be 5-0: you might well have said then same after the 1^st Test in 2005.

England carried too many players at Brisbane. Alistair Cook’s form on tour is worrying. What is more, apart from 2010/11, he has never done well in Australia. With no reserve opener, Cook has to fire. Is he still hungry? Jake Ball, who was a big gamble due to his lack of match practice, looked short of match fitness. He now has 3 wickets at 114 each in his 4 Tests. Had he been mean and economical, that could be overlooked but, in a slow-scoring match, he was by far the most expensive bowler. Craig Overton was not risked because the selectors felt that he might be too expensive, but his replacement was neither threatening nor economical. Chris Woakes had a match that was more the Woakes of 2015 than that of 2016 and 2017 who has carried all before him: neither runs, nor wickets and, to be brutally frank, not much threat of them either. And Moeen, hampered by a finger injury, struggled to spin the ball for much of the match.

The biggest problem that the team faces is the fact that even though they knocked over the top order, the tail was able to add more than one hundred for the last three wickets and that, in the end, was the difference between the two sides. There was no enforcer to come on and knock over 9, 10, Jack.

The selectors have a straightforward choice. It seems that Jake Ball is unlikely to get another game. Overton seems the most likely to replace him, although there are arguments for Mason Crane to share the spin duties, albeit that would be to take a massive punt – there are already suggestions that if a second spinner were required, it would be more likely to be Jack Leach, conveniently nearby with the Lions. The wild card is Mark Wood, another Lion, who seems to be getting back to fitness. Wood would supply the high pace that England lacked in Brisbane. It would be a risk: he is not match fit and he is coming back from injury, but a gamble is less dramatic in a four-man pace attack than in a three-man attack. The most likely change is Overton for Ball: Overton has taken wickets consistently in the warm-ups, although nerves seem to have  betrayed him every time he has come out to bat. Overton is a wild card, which reminds one a little of another Somerset lad who got an unexpected Test debut in 1977, bowled erratically, batted nervously, but somehow took 5-74 and never looked back.

Apart from Overton for Ball, the selectors are likely to keep faith with the same XI. Stoneman, Vince, Root and Malan all got runs, even if none of them could convert and Moeen did enough in both innings to suggest that a big score is there and could come at any time. In fact, Stoneman did enough to suggest that if Cook can get himself in, that century opening partnerships can be expected.

However it might seem, the situation is far from hopeless.

Ashes 2017/18: 1st Test, Day 5 - The Mischief-Makers Threaten to De-Rail England

 

Ashes 2017/18: 1^st Test, Day 5

The Mischief-Makers Threaten to De-Rail England

November 27^th 2017

First, the good news: England duly lost by 10 wickets before Lunch. OK, not so good, but compared to what follows, it seems wonderful. Enough about this until tomorrow. It is not the end of the world, nor are England in free fall. For Saturday’s day-night Test, which even the Australians believe that England could easily win, the one change is likely to be Craig Overton for Jake Ball, unless Moeen Ali’s injured spinning finger obliges a second change.

Now the bad news: no one is talking about this story.

And the worse news: what they are talking about is another dubious “England players are drunken thugs story”.

By a strange coincidence, exactly on the day that Australia went 1-0 in the series, what was apparently a minor piece of horseplay between Jonny Bairstow and Cameron Bancroft several weeks ago, has suddenly and mysteriously emerged in the Australian press as a brutal assault. An incident so “severe” that no one from the always hostile Australian press corps, never slow to publish negative news about England, even knew about it.

Bairstow is mortified. The England management are mortified, not to mention furious with Jonny Bairstow’s stupidity. The Australian team were, by all accounts, enjoying themselves hugely sledging him over the incident and the Australian press have another stick to beat the England team with.

Combine this with a Test defeat and the impression is of a side and a tour that are disintegrating. The danger is that it could.

Okay. So we expect mischief from the Australian media. All is fair in love and war. There was a massive over-reaction to what was essentially a non-story, but destructive mischief from the British press too?

For several weeks there has been a growing sensation that there is also something very disquieting too about the reporting of the Ben Stokes affair. And it seems that I am not the only one who feels that there is something missing from the reporting at all levels and that the press has quite not played clean.

Consider what we now know about the incident. An England player witnessed a brutal homophobic attack and, instead of standing by and watching two young men receive a severe and possibly even fatal beating, stepped in to protect them. Instead of standing aside, as it appears that some of the critics would have preferred and leaving them to be victims of a violent crime, he was brave enough to intervene.

If the press had been interested, the headline would have been:

“Hero England Star Saves Two Men From Brutal Beating”

In which case, the England management would have taken him aside and said something like “Ben, you were daft to get involved and in public we are going to have to say so, but we are really quite proud of you for doing it”. It is also quite likely that rather than a police investigation for assault, there would have been a quiet caution and a warning to leave matters to the police next time. Unfortunately, given the reporting of events, the police have had no option but to send a report to the Director of Public Prosecutions and management no choice but to eliminate Ben Stokes from their plans the short and medium term. The fact that no charge has been brought, even two months later, suggests that there is no clear evidence of a crime having been committed… at least by the person being accused in the media.

Of course, if Ben Stokes had stood to one side and had been a witness to a serious crime without intervening, the newspaper headline would almost certainly have been something on the lines of:

“England Star Watches Passively Horrific Attack”

When the press is out to get you, they are out to get you and, like Ian Botham before him, Ben Stokes’s name sells newspapers, particularly when there is some muck to spread.

When we should be proud of our star player’s courage – if somewhat horrified that he was stupid enough to be out drinking that late and around a violent incident in the first place – we are depriving the England side of his services and subjecting him to a parallel trial in the media, instead of bigging him up. Stokes showed the willingness to stand up to aggression that could have converted a England “close, but no cigar” performance in Brisbane, into a hard-fought win.

You may be disappointed that Ben Stokes was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You will most certainly decide that he committed more than one serious error of judgement. You can rightly suggest that maybe he released one or two unnecessary punches at the end, when the thugs who were the real criminals had been stopped in their tracks. And certainly no one should condone committing criminal violence, whatever the motive, but certainly all the evidence suggests that he has got a raw deal in the reporting of the incident.

As a proud Bristolian, albeit one who would never have been seen dead around that bar at that time of night (although I am reliably informed that I was born not far away from the scene of the incident – admittedly, decades before the bar even existed), I am increasingly glad that Ben Stokes had the courage to do what he felt was right, even if he was a bit of an idiot, knowing that he had previous, to get himself into a situation where he could turn into a “have-a-go-hero”, as the press would term it when they approve of a citizen’s actions in similar circumstances.

Ashes 2017/18: 1st Test, Day 4 - England Cave-In

 

Ashes 2017/18: 1^st Test, Day 4

England Cave-In

November 26^th 2017

Generations of schoolchildren have learnt the words “vini, vidi, vici”. Generally translated as “I came, I saw, I conquered”, more appropriate for the England side is “I came, I saw, I conked out”.

Seven sessions of highly competitive cricket were followed by five sessions of increasingly one-sided play. It was if the sleeping Australian beast had to be prodded into life before it would react. Whereas at the start of play there was a feeling that the match was still very much in the balance and that if England could get one solid partnership going, Australia might yet face a tricky chase, by Lunch the talk was of the match finishing in four days. That it did not was symptomatic of the “so near and yet so far” issues facing England.

As the match rolled on to its seemingly inevitable early finish on Day 5 (hope springs eternal, but I do not plan to lose my sleep on the 1% chance that Bob Willis – or his modern equivalent – takes 8-43, or that Ian Botham takes 5-1 to transform a lost position into a miraculous win: it is not going to happen), it was obvious that England are not going to waste their energy on a lost cause when there is another Test starting on Saturday afternoon.

For a time in the morning England fans could watch Joe Root batting sublimely, first with the obdurate Mark Stoneman and then with Moeen Ali and start to hope. For a few overs the run-rate accelerated and you sensed that another half an hour and Australian heads might start to drop and then, suddenly, out of nothing a wicket came to knock the stuffing out of the fightback before it could become a real problem.

Even after Lunch, when all but the most stubborn fans back home had given it up as a bad job and gone to bed, Moeen Ali and Jonny Bairstow started another promising partnership that ended with a “controversial” dismissal. It could be that the fate of the Ashes has been decided not by the metre that stood between James Vince and a second run in the first innings, but by a few millimetres of extra paint in the crease that meant that the toe of Moeen’s back foot was just touching the line when Paine broke the stumps instead of being behind it. The line belongs to the fielding side. Moeen was out according to the laws of the game. End of.

Moeen accepted that his foot should have been further back, but we are getting now to a ridiculous situation where millimetres can decide Test matches and Test series. Yes, technology can decide to a millimetre or two if the centre of the ball would have hit the stumps, or if it has pitched outside leg, but now we are depending on how exactly a groundsman has painted a white line! The laws were never designed for these combinations of high tech and low tech. Do not believe Tim Paine that he saw it all very clearly: if even the TV umpire took an age to see it clearly, we are tying ourselves into absurd knots with the interpretation of the laws (there was a similar example in the recent rugby Test between England and Australia in which the fans of one side clearly saw the player’s foot on the line and of the other, clearly saw grass between foot and line).

We have a similar situation where, in a runout, the wicket is so often broken between one frame and the next: in these cases one or other side will always feel a grievance and technology will always be blamed because it is sometimes just physically impossible to know if the bat was on or over the line. The Australians will always remember a similar decision in 2013 that they believe cost them the series, when Ashton Agar was ruled out, stumped, when a different Third Umpire might easily have given the opposite decision. Technology will always work best when things are clear one way or the other and an injustice has been done: a great example was the Joe Root dismissal to Cummins in the 1^st innings when Marais Erasmus clearly did make a mistake and his not out decision was overturned, or even Moeen’s 1^st innings dismissal where the umpire’s call, rightly, went the way of the bowler.

Fortunately, Moeen defused the situation by saying that that the dismissal was his fault. Not all players would be so honest and honourable.

It would also have been very unjust for England to have escaped punishment for their deficiencies on a technicality. The sad fact of the matter is that throughout the game the Australian attack had the happy knack of taking a wicket every time that an innings or a partnership started to become threatening. Stoneman, Root, Moeen and Bairstow all got starts, but only Root reached 50… and he fell next ball. Stoneman and Root put on 45; Root and Moeen, 39; Moeen and Bairstow, 42; Bairstow and Woakes, 30. Each time a partnership started to develop that seemed to be righting the England ship, a wicket fell. And, this time, with bowlers who had their tails up and had bowled far fewer overs than in the 1^st innings, Stuart Broad was never going to slog a quick 30 to change the momentum of the game.

You can identify three game-changing moments:

·       James Vince’s ill-judged attempt to beat Nathan Lyon’s throw at 145-2 in the 1^st innings.

·       The failure to bowl Anderson and Broad after Lunch on the third day, when England were facing the tail and Australia should have been bowled out 50 behind.

·       And the Moeen dismissal in the 2^nd innings, that snuffed-out the last possibility of an England fightback, just as the partnership was beginning to prosper.

It is not all gloom and despondency, because the game is far tighter than the scorecard will reflect in the end, but it is a game that England will look back on and know that, after 7 sessions of play, they were well-placed to win. There was a huge momentum shift after Lunch on Day 3 and it only got bigger with each passing session. By the end of the series England may rue letting this opportunity slip.

Last rites will be celebrated on the 5^th day and Australia will, deservedly, go 1-0 up.

Ashes 2017/18: 1st Test, Day 3 - In the Balance

Ashes 2017/18: 1^st Test, Day 3

In the Balance

November 25^th 2017

Three days of play and the match situation is a one-innings pressure match with 98 overs for each side. Day 3 has given the first hints of Australia waking-up and realising that if they are going to talk the talk, they have to walk the walk to back it up. For two and a half days they seemed to think that a bit of chat and England would lie down and play its assigned role of doormat.

After two, quite even days, both probably slightly England’s way, we have had an old-fashioned day when suddenly the match appears to have tipped Australia’s way.

England are still in the game but the stakes have been raised. Australia have raised their game and now England need to see them and raise them still further. Put bluntly, the fate of the Test rests on Stoneman and Root getting through the early overs tomorrow and blunting Cummins and Starc, before taking advantage of tiring bowlers and an older ball to set a target. Get through the first hour and things will start to get easier. Lose two wickets in the first hour and the game may not make it into a fifth day.

What will encourage Australia is that, faced with a pace barrage, England wilted. Suddenly the bowlers were much quicker than on Day 1. The pitch encouraged them a little more and they responded – although one would ask how much this barrage will have taken out of them after a heavy first innings load – and England looked very vulnerable. Cook’s mind looks to be elsewhere right now. James Vince could not repeat his first innings heroics. And Joe Root has already worn one massive blow on the helmet.

We are at the crucial moment of the Test and the series. Australia think that if they beat England down now, the series is won. England have already made a statement, but they need to follow it up by showing that they can go face-to-face and not be cowed. If England continue to put down a marker, this series could turn out to be the best since 2005.

Estimates of what England need vary widely. There are suggestions that Australia will not want to chase more than 240, although one suspects that they would be delighted to chase such a small target.

For England much will depend on the resolution of the Anderson mystery: why did he not bowl after Lunch? Is he injured? Without Anderson to take the new ball, Australia would fancy chasing 300+.

There are questions over the fitness of Jake Ball. He bowled only 18 overs and was by far the most expensive of the bowlers. Has the decision to pick him ahead of Overton been a mistake? Ball’s Test record of 3 wickets at an average of over 100 is hardly a strong case for selection. After such excellent performances in the warm-ups, the performance of Chris Woakes has been disappointing: he has shown nowhere near the threat of Broad and Anderson.

However, in last three Ashes series in Australia, by this stage of the Gabba Test England have been facing a massive defeat: the mere fact that they are still in the contest is a victory of sorts.  

Match position after 3 days of the Gabba Test:

·       2013/14: Australia 295 & 401-7d, England 136 & 25-2. Lost.

·       2010/11: England 260 & 19-0, Australia 481. Drawn.

·       2006/07: Australia 602-9d & 182-1, England 157. Lost.

·       2002/03: Australia 492 & 111-2, England 325. Lost.

·       1998/99: Australia 485, England 299-4. Drawn.

·       1994/95: Australia 426 & 194-7, England 167. Lost.

·       1990/91: England 194 & 114, Australia 152 & 157-0 (End of match). Lost.

• 1986/87: England 456, Australia 248 & 2-0. Won.

Ashes 2017/18: 1st Test, Day 2 - Two Deeply Flawed Sides Threaten to Produce a Classic

Two days into the Test and there is still no clear consensus which way it is going. What the first two days of play have told us is that even if England are a side with some serious weaknesses, Australia are no better and may be in a worse state. The result is a wonderful Test that is turning into a classic slow-boiler.

Of course, two days of cricket played at a more 1960s-like pace of 2.6 runs per over is not to the taste of today’s youth, gorged on the Big Mac of cricket: the IPL and Big Bash. The criticisms rained down on England’s slow scoring and safety first approach – the Brisbane Courier Mail’s headline today is a strong candidate already for the most lampooned quote of the series – but Australia have found it no easier to score quickly: in fact, the run-rates are just about identical.

Already, there are some signs that Australia’s controversial selections and lack of squad depth may come back to bite them. Having done the hard part this morning and provoked the sort of collapse that will have made Mitch Johnson’s moustache twitch with pleasurable memories, the increasingly tired Cummins and Starc allowed Stuart Broad to produce one of those irritating cameos that are now his speciality. 250-7 and despair, became 302ao and hope. Broad may not have any pretention to be a batsman any longer – the last of his 12 Test 50s was against South Africa, in July, but it is his only Test 50 since summer 2013 – which must make his 20s, 30s & 40s all the more irritating to the Australians, who fancy firing him out quickly. Jake Ball chipped in with a few and the final total must have been at least 20 more than Australia had hoped. Whereas in 2013/14, when the tail came in, Mitch Johnson was just getting warmed up and was ready for them, Pat Cummins and Mitch Starc were ready for a break and praying that the tail would not hang around for too long.

On a ground with a reputation for low-scoring Tests, passing 300 is a touchstone. England have only done it twice before in Test history at Brisbane and both times won.

Whereas Australia had to bowl their pacemen into the ground – 30 overs for Cummins, 28 for Starc – England can spread the load around four front-line, wicket-taking seamers and have a plausible sixth bowler in Root to give Moeen an occasional break and even the leg spin of Malan to try to buy a wicket, if needed. This is likely to pay dividends in the second innings when the England attack should be so much fresher. So far Woakes has bowled just 8 overs, as has Ball, who is being eased back to match fitness. England will have two, very lightly bowled seamers to turn to after the initial thrust in the morning, allowing Broad and Anderson to rest up for the new ball, due early in the second hour of the day.

Whereas England’s three Ashes debutants all made a 50, Bancroft failed as did Hanscomb and the recalled Khawaja, who may average 45 in Tests, but who has often struggled against both England and against spin, never seems to be more than a couple of failures from being dropped. Khawaja’s last 3 Tests innings have been 1, 1 & 11 and he supplied Moeen with the early wicket that he needs to gain confidence. At 76-4, Australia could have sunk without trace had Shaun Marsh gone early.

165-4 looks like parity and probably is, but Australia have a long tailish and Paine, who is under huge pressure, next in, can ill afford to lose an early wicket. While England can boast a #8 and #9 with 10 First Class Centuries between them, Australia’s #8 and #9 can only offer a couple of near-misses and neither Hazlewood nor Lyon, while competent tail-enders, have no great pretentions to be Test batsmen.

It is the sort of situation where either side could seize the match by the scruff of the neck: a century for Smith would be the basis for a decent, maybe even sizeable first innings lead but, if he were to go early, Australia might struggle to reach 250.

Whoever gets a first innings lead will be in poll position to win.

It may be slow by modern standards, but it is riveting.

Ashes 2017/18: 1st Test, Day 1 - A Reality Check for Both Sides

The call was for Australia to blow England away with explosive pace.

The threat was to play on the terror of the batsmen and to end careers.

The reality was that none of the Australian bowlers threatened 90 mph and a slow pitch largely neutralised them.

For large parts of the day the bat dominated the ball and the biggest threat by far was from the spin of Nathan Lyon. If anyone had told Joe Root that the biggest danger on the first day of the Gabba Test would be an off-spinner getting prodigious turn, he would have laughed in your face. This does not look like a normal Gabba Test or a normal Gabba pitch.

And if anyone had told you that Australia’s biggest nightmare on the day would be James Vince batting and batting and batting until Australia must have despaired of removing what they had identified as the weakest link in the England batting, you would have been deemed almost certifiable. Only a brilliant piece of fielding could shift James Vince when a century was his for the taking.

After from Vince learning to count past 42, the great news was Mark Stoneman making a solid, unruffled 50 and Dawid Malan batting calmly to the Close. All three debutants. All three controversial picks, have repaid the faith of the selectors.

The bad news:

Another failure for Alistair Cook. Scores of 0, 15, 32, 70 and 2 have got Australia interested. He looks vulnerable. Again. We have written off Alistair Cook so many times, particularly after the 2006/07 Ashes, the 2013 Ashes and the 2013/14 Ashes and he has come back but, apart from that 2010/11 series in Australia, his Ashes record is notably poor. Has he still got the will to make big runs?

England lost the initiative in the evening. At 127-1, you could dream of maybe 240-2 at the Close. However, 127-1 became 163-4 and the gloss had gone off the day. It was a mini-collapse and Australia must have felt that one more wicket and England might fold for around 200. It did not happen because Malan and Moeen Ali dug in, although the massive slog for 6 off the previously miserly Nathan Lyon suggested that Moeen does not quite get this concept of “dig in”. In fact, after Root fell, a brief but violent counter-attack even forced Cummins out of the attack as successive overs from Cummins and Lyon went for 4, 8 & 8.

The fact remains though that with the new ball just 3 balls old and an early start on the ‘morrow, the Australians are announcing loudly that they hope to dismiss England for 260 and be batting well before Lunch: England fans will fear the return of the good old Calypso Collapso, already present on this tour; the Australians still think that one good kick and the edifice of England’s batting will collapse. The reasoning is that if Pat Cummins can get a head of steam with the new ball and get rid of any two of Malan, Moeen and Bairstow, England’s last four will not fancy inconveniencing him. Two wickets in the first three or four overs and England may not reach 250.

However, the more buoyant of England fans have looked at the close of play score and noticed that it is almost identical to the score early on the second morning in the Brisbane Test of 1986/87. England were 198-4 and had just lost two quick wickets before one Ian Terrance Botham teamed up with Philip de Freitas and the score rocketed past 400. Australia were dismissed cheaply twice and England won comfortably.

Could it happen again? Australia’s record of success of Brisbane is so long that you know that it has to end sometime, probably sooner rather than later. However, before England start putting the champagne on ice they need to see off the new ball in the morning and start to accelerate.

There is a window of opportunity here. In 2013/14 Australia were so hostile and the tail so defenceless because Mitch Johnson rarely had a heavy load: he averaged fewer than 18 overs per innings through the series and the batsmen made big scores to give him plenty of rest. Already Pat Cummins has bowled 19 overs, Mitch Starc is in his 20^th and Josh Hazlewood has bowled 18. Will Pat Cummins be able to retain his pace of he has to bowl 30 overs? Can Steve Smith risk him or Mitch Starc, both injury prone (in Cummins’s case, more injury plagued), breaking down? There is not much that can be offered as a plausible fifth bowler to rest the pace trio, or to buy a breakthrough were Australia to get stuck.

If Dawid Malan and Moeen Ali can bat for an hour the spearhead will be broken and runs will start to come more quickly. Bring in Jonny Bairstow and Chris Woakes against tired bowlers and maybe, just maybe, sights can be set on 350, 380, or even 400. That is the prize if these two not out batsmen can both push their innings deep into the morning session.

England fans can only hope.

England’s players will want to show that they are no pushover and make a point about the vacuity of some of the pre-match chat, using it as motivation.

Bat well, bat long tomorrow and the always fragile Australian morale will start to take a beating.

Collapse and there will be no way back.

Ashes 2017/18: 1st Test Preview, Trash-talking at its Worst

 

Ashes 2017/18: 1^st Test Preview

Trash-talking at its Worst

November 22^nd 2017

What went on before the 2013/14 Ashes was pretty unpleasant. By all accounts, even some of the Australians felt embarrassed later by the crudity and ugliness of some of the talk. The 2017/18 Ashes though have sunk to a new low. It has shades of the sort of badly-scripted trash-talking before a boxing match. It is even beginning to look more a desperate attempt to reassure themselves that they are as good as they claim to be than any serious attempt to intimidate England: yes, you are scared facing your own bowlers in the nets, but what will it do to the confidence of your own, questioned batsmen if they have their confidence thoroughly shaken as is supposedly happening? One suspects that Stuart Broad, who picked up 21 wickets at 27.5 in 2013/14 as all fall apart around him (and 22 at 27.5 in 2013 summer series), will have pricked up his ears at that piece of intelligence

The Australians go into this series knowing that when the England squad was picked, back in September, even many English pundits thought that it had no hope of being competitive. When Ben Stokes then ruled himself out of selection by coming to the aid of two young men who were suffering a late-night homophobic attack in Bristol, what merely seemed an impossible task just got a lot bigger. England though have got on with what they came out to do: prepare, get ready for the big day and arrive with everyone is some kind of form. When no one gives you a prayer, it can even be liberating.

The best news for England is that two of the marginal picks – Stoneman and Malan – are both in excellent batting form… at least so far. In eight innings so far, between them they sum 2x100 and 5x50: only a single-figure score for Malan in the second innings at Adelaide has spoilt a perfect run of 50+ scores. Of course, scores against weak attacks on flat pitches in low-intensity games in empty stadia are no guarantee of runs at the Gabba when a crowd of 40000 and five slips are all squawking at you, but you can only score against what is put against you.

England can do no more than point out that all their top eight for the Test, bar Moeen, who has only had a single innings and Woakes, have posted at least one fifty. Woakes and Anderson have looked very good with the ball but, there the good news ends.

Of the attack to take the field tonight, Broad’s form has been scratchy, Ball has only bowled 15.4 overs due to injury, most of them in the opening non-First Class first fixture and Moeen has only bowled half the overs of the not-selected Mason Crane. While, of the batsmen, Cook and Bairstow have had modest starts with the bat and Moeen, who will bat at #6 has faced just 22 balls. James Vince, who bats at #3, has done what James Vince does: with 170 runs, only Stoneman and Malan have more so far on tour but, scores of 82, 33, 29 & 26 reveal the constant Vince problem of getting starts and then getting out. So far in his 11 Test innings, Vince has got into double figures 7 times and past 30 on 4 occasions, yet his top score remains just 42.

It has all the elements of a train wreck. If Australia bat first you can imagine the score being 300-2 late on the first day, with an England attack that is not fully match fit, fading by moments.

However, there is another reality. When the Australian side was selected it was roundly condemned by the Australian media. There have been surprise recalls for Paine and Marsh. Cameron Bancroft, who has managed just one century in two seasons for Gloucestershire is the great white hope of the batting and the rest of the side is a mixture of tried and tested and players who have been in and out of the side. There is no doubt that the batting is vulnerable and that if England bowl well, take their chances and use the conditions, they could easily run through the top order. However, they know just as well that if David Warner or Steve Smith is dropped on 0, it could turn into an awfully costly mistake.

In 2013, the basis of the attack was to have Mitch Johnson backed up by Ryan Harris. The figures prove that Johnson was less than half the bowler without Harris at the other end and, in 2013/14, England was unfortunate to come up against both of them fit and purring at the same time. This time England have to face Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood. There is no all-rounder. Mitch Marsh is not fit to bowl and, should Cummins, whose injury record makes Mark Wood look indestructible, pick up an injury early, they will be very exposed indeed: the back-up to Cummins and Starc is very thin.

The way to win is for England to see off the new ball and to make Cummins come back for third and fourth spells. It was the theory with Mitch Johnson in 2013/14 too. In that series Mitch Johnson averaged fewer than 19 overs per innings: if Cummins can be made to bowl 25, or even 30 overs per innings in the first two Tests, his pace is going to drop like a stone, as well as his chances of making it through five Tests uninjured. So, the England top 5 have to sell their wickets dearly and if they can neutralise Lyon, who will have to bowl a lot of overs to rest Cummins and Starc, they could just pose Steve Smith some real problems. In contrast, if England are consistently losing 3 or 4 wickets to the new ball, Smith will have the easiest job in the world.

England, to their credit, have not got involved in the trash talk. They know that there is one way to answer it and that is by performing on the field.

There is a lot of expectation that Australia will win 5-0 and that means pressure. If they cannot back up their talk with performances, that pressure will ratchet-up rapidly.

Australia should win, but a decent start by England – a draw, or even a win at the Gabba – and things might so easily go as horribly wrong for Australia as they did for England in 2013. Whatever they do, England must not fold on the first day, as they did in 2013 and, previously, in 2003 and 2007 (and on other occasions): if they do, nothing will turn the tide and Joe Root will look more like King Canute than he does Moses, parting the Australian waves.

Ashes 2017/18: Don’t Panic Captain Mainwaring!

 

Don’t Panic Captain Mainwaring!

November 10^th 2017

To read the headlines in the sporting press there would seem to be little point in England turning up for the 1^st Test in just under two weeks. It is all redolent of a previous tour when Martin Johnson famously summed-up the warm-ups with the phrase:

England have just three problems: they can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field.

Of course, the first day of that series ended 198-2 and England won a comfortable series victory. Fixating so much on England’s problems, no one looked at Australia’s.

Of course, we have been here before. England went to Australia in 2013 on the back of a 3-0 home Ashes win, lost the initiative at the end of the series, particularly in the ODIs and fell apart. Poor selections, poor planning and some downright bad luck played their part, as did an astonishing run of form from Mitch Johnson, who had probably never in his career strung together such a devastating string of performances. England were not the only sufferers: in ten Tests over three series v Sri Lanka, England and South Africa in a 16 month period punctuated by a serious injury, Mitch Johnson took 68 wickets at 16.6. It was England’s misfortune to meet him at the height of his powers – his next five series, the last of his career, saw him take 49 wickets at 33.9 and conform to his stereotype of “occasionally devastating, frequently innocuous”.

The BBC has a particularly devastating exposé of the events behind the scenes in the 2013/14 Ashes, but even it barely scratches the surface. The plan to hit Australia with three tall fast bowlers backfired spectacularly. The selectors were apparently unaware that Chris Tremlett was still feeling his way back from serious injury and a shadow of his former self. Boyd Rankin was never fit on that tour and even so had to play a Test. And Steve Finn got the yips so badly that it would have been kinder to send him home. However, the selectors were not to blame for Graeme Swann suffering career-ending injury, Jonathon Trott’s stress-induced illness (although there were signs that all was not well months beforehand) and Monty Panesar starting to suffer the problems that have derailed his career.

The 2017/18 Ashes touring party has convinced no one. Batting positions #1, #3 and #5 have produced the sort of action normally seen in comedy films when a hand grenade without a pin is passed from hand to hand. While Mark Stoneman has given some signs of being able to cope as a Test opener, his record is modest and he owes his position more to the failings of others. Dawid Malan at #5 was a surprise pick in the summer Tests: again, he has played a couple of decent innings, but is yet to convince. And the “battle” to bat at #3 between James Vince and Gary Ballance sees two batsmen, tried, tested and discarded, in a shoot-out in which the bullet is as likely to hit the batsman’s own foot as it is to hit the opposition gunslinger.

There is no Ben Stokes for well-known reasons and that unbalances the attack and the middle-order. Steve Finn has already been sent home, injured. Moeen has not yet bowled a ball in anger. Jake Ball, who looked set to play in the 1^st Test has sprained an ankle. And injuries ruled out Mark Wood, Toby Roland-Jones and a string of other likely bowlers, while one of the few players to come home from Australia with any credit in 2014 – Chris Jordan – is now out of favour and appears forgotten.

Add to all this that, against a couple of pretty weak attacks, Alistair Cook is yet to make a score and appears to be batting with a stick of rhubarb and there have already been several collapses in just three innings and it is not surprising that the Australian fans and press are shaking with laughter. The opening shots from the bowling attack hardly inspired fear either. Two months without a bowl in the middle has left some of the bowlers logically a little rusty. Stuart Broad looked particularly out of sorts and Chris Woakes’s opening overs were pretty rusty, but that is why you schedule warm-up games. The aim is to have Broad, Woakes and Jimmy Anderson fit and firing at Brisbane on November 23^rd, not at Perth on the first day of the tour. Win or draw that Brisbane Test and suddenly the momentum of the series will change.

Already there are some small signs that suggest that maybe things are not so bad after all. No batsman has yet scored a century, but there have been two near misses. Mark Stoneman has 3x50 in three innings. Six batsmen have registered a fifty, while Malan already has two in three innings and Jonny Bairstow has only been dismissed once so far in three innings.

Of the attack, Jimmy Anderson looks in superb form. His 7 wickets have so far cost under 10 each. Chris Woakes  has run through the Cricket Australia XI top order and wild cards Crane and Overton, who both probably expected to spend two months carrying drinks, have also taken wickets and shown some promising form. And, before his injury, Jake Ball’s accuracy and economy were very impressive.

Australia’s first-choice attack looks fearsome, but the reserves are thin and much depends Pat Cummins, whose injury record is horrific. There are also questions about at least two places in the top seven. At the same time, Australia’s median innings total in the last two years is just 243. There have been eight completed innings totals under 200, not all of them away from home either. Innings totals of 85 and 161 against South Africa in Hobart and a struggle to reach a target of 187 against New Zealand speak of frailties no less real than England’s, as do a series of abject performances in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

You can certainly argue that the 1^st Test will decide the series. If Australia win easily, the cracks in their own side will be forgotten and those in England’s team – one highly respected writer already calls them “beleaguered” – may quickly widen to chasms. In contrast, a solid England draw would send a powerful message and help to knit the team together in adversity. If the top order can oblige Pat Cummins to come back for a third and a fourth spell, the lower order will find it much easier to add the tail-end runs that are so often the difference between victory and defeat.

Expectations of England, as in 1986, are miserably low: that may be no bad thing because the opposition will expect to win easily – if they do not, the pressure in the series will shift quickly.