Ashes 2013
Unbelievable!
January 26th 2014
When you are chasing a small
target and have six batsmen who get into double figures, with the target never
more than one-a-ball, you really do expect to win. However, right through the
chase the scores were very close, both in wickets and runs, with England just a
fraction ahead most of the time until the end of the 47th over. In a tight chase, everything comes down to
confidence and Australia feel that, even if they need 60 to win with the last
pair together, they are going to win. England think back to the Sydney Test, or
the 2nd ODI and start to fret that it is going to slip away again
and, in doing so, it does. In the end, it came down to fractions and the 30
runs that Australia scored from their last 4 overs ended up being the
difference between the sides.
The key moment came after 33
overs when England had their maximum advantage of the entire match: 142-3 against
128-5, with Root and Morgan batting comfortably. The next seven overs brought
just 18 runs and the wickets of both batsmen, as Australia strangled the chase.
From then on it was a 50-50 game and, despite the depth of batting to come, it
would come down to confidence and belief. Australia believe and their escape in
the 2nd ODI has just reinforced it, England felt confident, but
filled with doubts again as they saw an unassailable position slip away slowly.
Another feature though has been
a constant: the winning side tends to get the breaks. In the Test series there
was so many moments when all the luck that was going went Australia’s way.
Here, when Ravi Bopara was doing what he had to do and grit out the runs
without doing anything flashy, laying a base for the strokeplayers at the other
end, he suffered the diabolical luck that England have faced all tour: Wade
misses the ball, it ricochets off him and hits the top of the bails. Bopara has
lifted his foot a fraction… OUT!!!
A lot of fans – and some
commentators – have laid the blame for the defeat at Bopara’s door for getting
himself out, but it was symptomatic of the way that Australia have consistently
had the rub of the green during the tour. It is also true that a side tends to
make its own luck. Last summer, with England clearly superior, the one occasion
that Australia had got into a winning position, England were saved by rain
although, the way that Australia consistently had got into promising positions
that they lost because the change bowling was so weak, I still would not rule
out the possibility that England would have won. When the force is with a team,
it only takes a tiny mistake or a piece of good fortune to let them back in.
A fine England bowling effort
deserved better. Chris Jordan (described as fast-medium) again broke 90mph and
was comfortably faster than Nathan Coulter-Nile (described as fast). Jordan’s
pace ramped-up steadily in his last few overs and was rewarded with two wickets
in two balls in his last over to close an economical spell. Stuart Broad tied
the Australian top order in knots. James Tredwell bowled well, giving little
away and Ben Stokes stifled the Australian revival, taking the sting out of
their middle-order and reducing their options of a late charge.
After yet another agonising
loss, does Stuart Broad, who takes over the captaincy for the T20s, have any
way of raising the side?
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