Things Start To Fall Into Place

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

The Most Satisfying Day of the Tour

 

November 14^th 2013

 
 

After trips to Perth and to Hobart that must have left the England squad wondering “is your journey really necessary”, today has been a really satisfactory day. Having watch the Cricket Australia Invitational XI get weaker by the day as player after player was withdrawn to play in the Sheffield Shield, there had been a fear that, between weak opposition and the forecast bad weather, this match would be of as limited use for serious preparation as he previous two. When the Australian top order, with Ed Cowan and Aaron Finch at its head imploded so spectacularly there was a fear that the bowlers would not get the hard workout that they needed, trying to winkle-out well-set batsmen when the ball was doing little or nothing. In particular Broad and Swann needed some hard overs.

When Carters and Neville did exactly what England needed them to do and showed some backbone, the headlines were, predictably, that it had been a pretty bad day at the office. All that though was put in context by what followed. When Broad took Carters first ball of the day, 271-5 rapidly became 304 all out. Four cheap wickets for Broad. Five for Finn. And what is even more important, at least 22 hard overs for every bowler, with Finn topping 28. The argument about the attack for Brisbane has been settled.

The Invitational bowling attack though is probably not much stronger than English County 2^nd XI. Lalor and Tremain, the new ball attack, had just five First Class matches each and 18 and 16 wickets respectively coming into this match, both at averages around 30. The one thing that did not go to script was that Michael Carberry fell cheaply however, he has so many runs already that it hardly matters. After that, Cook, Trott and KP made merry. Jon Agnew described KP’s wicket as “bored out” – having hit the ball to all corners for an hour and a half it was time to give someone else a go and get on with something more taxing, like reading a book.

Having reached parity by the Close, with the batsmen scoring at 4-an-over, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow were enjoying some middle time, with Root looking set for another 50 batting at 6. The experiment of Root going back to the middle order seems to have revitalised him.

Even the weather is starting to help England. The bad forecast for tomorrow has improved considerably and there is a likelihood that there will be most of a day’s play. Ideally England would like to see Root and Bairstow get their fifties and then declare around lunch, before seeing if the bowlers can provoke another top-order collapse. It will be a big surprise if Finn does not get the new ball instead of Rankin in the second innings and an even bigger one if he and Broad do not rip into the Australian top order to try to make a point or two ahead of the Test. Finn, in particular, knows that he has had an almost miraculous comeback, having looked the most likely of the tall quicks to be left out of the XII for Brisbane. A little fire in the second innings and his place will be safe for at least a couple of matches. However, the news is that Tim Bresnan will play either in Alice Springs or in the Development XI’s three day match and will, most likely, be available for selection for the 2^nd Test so, unless he has a really good game at Brisbane, he may still lose his place later in the series.