First Test Reflections

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Concerns for Both Teams

 

July 15^th

 

In the aftermath of five days of intense drama, both sides have a couple of days and only a couple of days to reflect as the 2^nd Test starts at Lords on Thursday. Fans too have launched intense post-mortems on the result, the state of the teams and, in particular, the umpiring and the effect of DRS.

There was some concern, bordering on horror, that the result was determined based on a DRS overrule. Some fans have suggested that Australia were robbed by a marginal decision, made almost on a whim. Certainly it did not help that there was a faint mark on HotSpot before the ball passed the bat. However, looking carefully at the images (they are freely available on the ECB UTube page) you see various details, some of which were missed at the time:

1.       There was a small, but significant deflection as the ball passed the bat.

2.       Brad Haddin looked back immediately as the ball passed the bat (the “guilty look”)

3.       The HotSpot mark moved quite clearly as the ball passed the bat. It looks as if the bat may have brushed the pad as Haddin played the ball, causing an initial mark by the face of the bat that faded rapidly. The ball then brushed the back edge of the bat, causing a second mark, displaced slightly with respect to the initial mark. The jump in position is quite clear.

4.       There was a strong signal on Snicko as the ball passed the bat.

5.       The TV umpire could hear the edge on the TV feed and confirmed to the on-field umpire that he heard a sound.
 

When you add together all the individual items it really is quite hard to see how anyone could call the decision marginal, except in the sense that it was a very fine edge to an excellent ball that beat Brad Haddin all ends up and that could have gone anywhere for all the batsman knew of the ball.

Just like Stuart Broad on Friday, Brad Haddin must have known that he had hit the ball but, such was the match position, with the last pair getting so close, no batsman in the world would have walked. Haddin hoped against hope that, like Broad, he would get away with it. The difference is that England still had both reviews left (something that Aleem Dar also knew and had the luxury of not having to take a risk on deciding the match with an error if not absolutely certain that Haddin was out), whereas Michael Clarke had burnt both his on poor reviews.

How you read the match depends on your point of view. Australian fans will point out that they showed that they could compete and got very close indeed to a win against the odds. They will also point out that, of the England attack, only Jimmy Anderson troubled them and that the England attack twice struggled to knock over the Australian #11 and that the England top order struggled against their bowlers.

England supporters will point out that however, their own top 6 struggled, the Australians collapsed badly twice and were bailed out by the 10^th wicket in both innings. Consider the score at the fall of the 6^th wicket in each innings:

	1st innings	2nd innings
England	180	218
Australia	113	164

In both innings England obtained a far better return from their batsmen than Australia: 67 in the first innings and 54 in the second innings. That is 121 extra runs that had to be made up by the tail.

Whereas two years ago it was England who were getting large numbers of bonus runs from the tail, now Australia can fairly claim to have the strongest 8, 9, 10, Jack in world cricket. However, at Trent Bridge, even the powerful lower order could not compensate the failure of the specialists. It is likely that, at Lords, England will change a batting rabbit (Steve Finn), for a competent #8 (Tim Bresnan), who could well push Graeme Swann, with his four First Class centuries, down to #10, thus reducing significantly Australia’s advantage in this department.

At the same time, while England will be concerned that they allowed the last wicket to put up partnerships of 164 and 65, Australia should be seriously concerned that their top order batting was so lightweight twice. There is some justification for England, rather less for Australia. In the first innings,  England were seriously handicapped by absence of Stuart Broad suffering the aftereffects of the blow on his shoulder, who could not bowl until the rest of the attack was exhausted. In the second innings England were again reduced to effectively a three-man attack by the poor performance of Steve Finn who, when used briefly, threatened to lose the match in a single spell. At Lords it is essential that England have four effective bowlers who are completely fit because they may not get away with playing a three-man attack again. Similarly, Australia may not get away with relying on tail-end runs if England have what is effectively an extra bowler, allowing them to maintain their threat even when the tail is in.

In 2005, England took strength from having competed hard in the 1^st Test to win, just, in the 2^nd Test at Edgbaston. Will Australia follow a similar course, or will England take the warning and be more clinical?

Again there is a parallel with 2005: had Glenn McGrath not injured himself stepping on a stray ball in the warm-up for the that Edgbaston Test, could England have won? Probably not! Imagine the effect if Jimmy Anderson’s “touch of cramp” on Sunday were actually a muscle pull that rules him out of the 2^nd Test: would England still be favourites to win?