Ashes 2013
Australia’s careful plan could misfire
November 7th 2013
With England
sat pretty at 318-0 possibly the last thing that you wanted to see if you are
an Australian is grey, murky skies over the Derwent River, with the prospect of
England’s bowlers revelling in the sort of conditions that seam bowlers dream
of. Before Kevin Pietersen has even batted on the tour, Australia have batted
Carberry, Cook, Trott and Bell into form with comfortable centuries. In fact,
none of them has even been dismissed after scoring a century as all four have
been either “not out” or have retired. Unfortunately though for England, the
murk and drizzle never lifted and a precious day of practice has been lost.
Despite the early start planned for tonight, the forecast is for more of the
same, which is not ideal.
Assuming
that players can get on the field, it seems inconceivable that Cook and
Carberry will not retire out overnight, leaving the only dismissal of one of
England’s likely top five for the Tests as Carberry’s in the Perth match and
even that for a healthy 70-odd. The issue is to get Pietersen, Root, Ballance and
Prior some middle time before throwing the bowlers at Australia A.
The spin is
that this has been a deliberately weak Australia A side, so that any England
success with the bat is meaningless and of no concern to the Australians for
the Ashes. How valid this is is open to some question. Trent Copeland has
played 3 Tests and averages 24.5 in First Class cricket. Moises Henriques has
played 3 Tests, 5 ODIs and 2 T20s. Ben Cutting has played 3 ODIs and 2 T20s and
averages 24.9 in First Class cricket. Glenn Maxwell played in the Tests against
India before the Ashes, bowling plenty of overs and has a lot of ODIs and T20s
behind him. Even Jim Holland has 75 First Class wickets, albeit at a rather
poor average, but that is a reflection more of the poverty of Australian spin
bowling resources than of the poverty of selection (England supporters will
recall the last two Ashes series for the succession of spinners, each more
unlikely than the last, who were ranged against them before being summarily
dropped). It is not a great Australia A side like some from the 1990s that were
better than most other Test sides in the world, but you cannot expect a weak
Test side with an injury crisis to have a powerful 2nd XI. The
Australia A side is not as weak as it is painted.
One thing is
certain and that is that the Australia A side has been picked to have powerful
batting. This is just what the England bowlers need to prepare them: hard work
on a flat pitch against proper batting will do none of them any harm. If that
batting struggles, it will be interesting to see what spin is put on the
performance after the events of Day 1.
Apart from
the Carberry/Root issue, England have given some broad hints in this match
about selection. This looks close to the final Test XI. Ballance will make way
for Bell in the final match and Tremlett has been given the first chance to
seal the third seamer spot, although there is still a chance that Boyd Rankin
could nick it in the end: whichever plays next week will, barring disaster,
play at Brisbane.
The
losers in this are most definitely Jonny Bairstow and Monty Panesar. Neither
have played so far and they are unlikely to play unless it is in the two-day game
at Alice Springs between the 1st and 2nd Tests. Steve Finn and
Boyd Rankin, both of whom must have had high hopes of starting the Tests series
as third seamer will also be wondering if they will play any more cricket on
the tour apart from the Alice Springs game.
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