Ashes 2017/18: 4th and 5th ODIs, A Strange End to a Strange ODI Series

 

Ashes 2017/18: 4^th and 5^th ODIs

A Strange End to a Strange ODI Series

January 28^th 2017

The last two ODIs have featured a side that has relaxed and gone off the boil, against another that has lost all confidence that it can win, however favourable the position. The result has been first a game in which Australia staggered drunkenly over the line despite having had England 8-5 after 6.2 overs – a position from which there should have been no return – and then a match in which Australia seemed to be cruising to an inadequate target, needing 71 from 97 balls, with 6 wickets in hand and yet somehow contrived to lose.

Australia can point to the fact that it had a winning position in four of the five games and that the final margin of 4-1 does not reflect the true distance between the sides. It does reflect though their problems: they cannot pace a chase, they struggle to set adequate targets and cannot finish-off games: today’s slow, painful innings by Tim Paine was symbolic of how Australia could not close out a position. Their ODI cricket seems anchored in the past and their confidence close to zero. Australia show all the problems that England did in the last World Cup in the sense of thinking that 260-270 is a perfectly adequate total to set, trying to milk singles from the middle overs and thinking that if Plan A does not work, they should try Plan A… until it does finally work in a game.

England, on the other hand, just lack the ruthlessness that separates the good from the very good. Yes, they won today’s match and pushed Australia to the limit in the fourth match, but against a better side they would have lost the series.

Ultimately the hero today was Tom Curran, who also gave a favourable impression in the Tests in his limited opportunities, but a big hand has to go to Jake Ball for getting up off the floor after collapsing and avoiding the need for Joe Root to have to bowl two of the last four overs with only a small number of runs to protect. Even though Ball took some stick from a couple of balls, he avoided disaster and Tom Curran did the rest, cleaning up Zampa and Paine in successive overs.

The biggest single problem that Australia had all through the series came from the unlikeliest of sources. Australia simply had the holy terrors in the middle overs every time that Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali bowled. Although Moeen’s batting struggles have continued, he has looked a different man with the ball and has squeezed the run-scoring, allowing Adil Rashid to attack at the other end. Adil Rashid has been more expensive than anyone other than Liam Plunkett, but has been the highest wicket-taker in the series and the only bowler on either side to bowl all fifty overs. Moeen has taken fewer wickets, but has produced pressure by drying-up the runs. Between them they have taken fifteen wickets and posed problems that the Australian middle order simply could not solve. So many of Adil Rashid’s wickets have come from batsmen attacking him, thinking foolishly that buffet was served, not realising that this is his main threat: producing rushes of blood and injudicious swipes. While Adil Rashid was expensive on paper, his appearance so often led to precious wickets falling that halted any momentum that the runs off him had created.

This is one of the features of the new England: Eoin Morgan is happy to see Adil Rashid taking 3-55, or even 3-60 from 10 overs, when previous captains would have preferred to see 0-45. As happened in the Tests last winter, until some poor captaincy ended up draining their confidence, Moeen and Adil Rashid bowl well together and complement each other. Eoin Morgan has the happy knack of getting the best from them in ODIs, which makes one wonder if they should be given another chance to bowl together in Tests sooner rather than later.

For England, the pieces that did not quite work in the Tests came right here. Chris Woakes scored plenty of runs in limited opportunities and also took wickets. Joe Root’s 226 runs more than trumped Steve Smith’s 102 – Smith struggled against Adil Rashid and seemed to lose confidence progressively, scoring increasingly slowly. It is possible that the effort of carrying his side’s batting through the Test series has just drained Steve Smith so totally that he simply needs a rest, while Joe Root has been refreshed by being able to hand over the captaincy and the spotlight to someone else. Jason Roy produced two fine innings and someone always produced critical runs: Roy in one innings, Buttler in another, Root in another and Woakes every time him came out to bat. Woakes, Roy and Buttler all scored at comfortably in excess of a run-a-ball and worked around Joe Root’s efforts to anchor innings. Apart from the success of Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid as spin-twins, the addition of some real pace and threat from Liam Plunkett and Mark Wood made a real difference, along with the revival of Chris Woakes as a threat with the ball.

In contrast, Australia chopped and changed their side – they used 16 players to England’s 14 – but only Marcus Stoinis offered enough runs, fast enough to be a real threat, even if his bowling was more of a liability to his side than an advantage. Aaron Finch was massive in the three games that he played: 2x100 and 1x50, but had too little support and seemed to slow, not accelerate, as his innings progressed.

England cannot rest on their laurels, but this series is a massive change from the equivalent one in 2013/14 that they lost 4-1. Australia though have some serious thinking to do with the World Cup coming closer. It is also further evidence that Australia’s superiority in the Tests had more to do with the fortune to be able to bowl their first-choice attack all through the series (with one exception) than it did with their strength in depth. While Australia’s best XI is formidably strong, the next layer of players underneath are not in the same class and Australia are not the same force away from their hostile home conditions.

 

Ps: Odd fact from the ODI series – in every match, Australia started as strong favourites with the bookmakers. There was an opportunity there for someone to make money. Or did the bookies know something that we did not?