Time To Get Down To The Real Business

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

The serious business begins for both sides

 

November 2^nd 2013

 
 

Today Australia’s tour of India ends and England’s first (and very gentle) warm-up in Perth has ended. From here things get more serious. It was traditional in past tours for England to play a scratch side in their first tour game and, almost as traditional for England to lose.

The Western Australia Chairman’s XI was a weak side and England picked what looked very much like a 2^nd XI to play it, minus Monty Panesar, who was unwell and who would, most likely, have played. Billed as the battle of England’s tall fast bowlers, the pitch made the ones on offer in Bangladesh’s recent series against New Zealand look lively. It is hard to avoid the impression that the Australians are keen to avoid England getting any kind of useful practice. This has led to a cross-fire of allegations with the Australians saying that fair is fair as the ECB refused to give them any meaningful practice in England last summer.

In part this is a reflection of the change in the England set-up. Long gone is the time when county players queued up to play against touring sides knowing that a century or a five wicket haul would give them a real chance of playing in the next Test. These days, with a much more stable (and successful) England side, only a long period of sustained county form, backed up by success with the Lions is likely to get one of those coveted Test places.

Counties now see matches against the tourists as a chance to rest star players and try out some youngsters. It leads to an overall impression that this is a deliberate policy to stymie the tourists and invites revenge, although India’s last winter was extreme by any standards, picking seam-heavy attacks on very un-Indian surfaces. Over the last couple of seasons the inevitable result have been that the ECB has requested that counties guest players to provide practice for players on the fringes of the Test side and more realistic opposition for the tourists (Andrew Strauss for Somerset, two seasons ago; last summer Nick Compton for Worcestershire, James Taylor for Sussex).

One of the Australian complaints voiced on fan fora and alluded to by the ACB, was that they were only given matches against weak Division 2 opposition and this is justification to give England similarly poor opposition. In fact, this is not a claim that stands up to any kind of scrutiny. Australia played Somerset (Division 1 runners-up the previous season) and Sussex (who ended up challenging for the Championship for most of the season), plus the just-relegated Worcestershire, strengthened with the inclusion of Nick Compton. They also had a game against a strong England Lions side. It is hard to sustain the allegation that a side with a top five containing Trescothick, Compton, Hildreth and Kieswetter was cherry-picked to be weak! The odd man out in that top five, Chris Jones, scored a magnificent 130 against Starc, Pattinson, Siddle, Faulkner and Lyon. Only two of the Somerset side were not 1^st XI regulars and that was more down to the Somerset injury crisis than any particular conspiracy. Often fans do not realise that tour schedules are pacted with the visiting Board and have to be accepted by both sides, hence England requested – and received – three matches against 1^st Class opposition on their tour.

In fact, over the summer tour, Australia played 6 ODIs (two unofficial), plus two four day matches before the 1^st Test: 14 days of cricket, although the ODI against New Zealand was rained-off (not the ECB’s fault). At the same time, the Australia A side, containing several Test players who were not needed for the Champions Trophy, played three-day matches against Scotland and Gloucestershire (in this latter game they came extremely close to losing against the side that had finished bottom of the County Championship the previous season), plus an unofficial Test against the full Ireland side, while other members of the Test side had their regular county contracts and were playing Division 1 cricket. It is hard to sustain the argument that there was a deliberate effort to make sure that Australia had no proper practice: in fact, England are the only country that regularly gives visiting tourists county contracts to play and acclimatise before a tour starts, before releasing the players to their Test side. It all makes the standard “whinging poms” line sound rather ironic.

That though, is by the by. Neither Australia nor England should feel too delighted today. While Bell and Trott both scored first innings centuries and Carberry – deputising for Alistair Cook and his bad back – scored an excellent 78, that was about the end of the good news. Joe Root 36 was the only other England score over Steve Finn’s 15 and the sceptics who say that his technique is being found out by opening will have more ammunition. Carberry’s form though offers England the option of opening with him and Cook and dropping Joe Root back down to #6 where he has done so well. Balance, Prior and Stokes summed just eight runs between them. With Stokes adding 1-56 and 0-18 with the ball, it is quite possible that he will see no more cricket in the middle until the ODIs start. Not that any of the other members of the attack did much better: Boyd Rankin’s 1-92 and 2-34 were, by far, the stand-out bowling performance by England, with Jimmy Anderson not bowling at all in the second innings after an impressively accurate start. However, with England playing Anderson, Broad and Swann together, plus one of the tall seamers, things might look rather different. Certainly, with Cook and KP also to come in for the second match, the England side will look very different.

Lest Australia start to crow, their day has not been exceptional either. While Australia have won two matches on their tour of India, having not won an international match on their previous two, they have lost the T20 series and the ODI series and, apart from the 1^st ODI where India folded for 232, conceded scores of: 202-4 in the T20, 362-1, 303-9, 351-4 and, today, 383-6. With the Test attack suffering from an injury plague, bowlers such as Mitch Johnson, Clint McKay and Glenn Maxwell are very serious options for the Brisbane Test. Although Mitch Johnson had a fine series and has made himself a prime contender for the Test series, his 7 wickets in the series at under 6 an over are very much padded by his 4-46 in the second game. Faulkner’s 7 wickets came at almost 47 each and at 7.2 an over. McKay’s 4 wickets cost an eye-watering 75 each and Shane Watson’s 3, 76 each. Once Mitch Johnson was out of the attack, the Indian batsmen were left more or less free to score at will.