Ashes 2013

 

The Australian Hokey-Cokey is Set to Continue

 

August 7^th

 

[07:30 CEST] With just three days between the 3^rd and the 4^th Test there was always the possibility that a minor knock would force one or other side to make a change to guarantee that players would make it through five days, quite apart from tactical changes. It is likely that Graeme Onions will replace Tim Bresnan, although there is a strong case for resting the heavily overworked Jimmy Anderson instead to refresh the attack.

What Australia will do is quite unpredictable. There seems to be a move to reinstate David Warner at the top of the order despite Darren Lehman’s affirmation that Australia would use Watson and Rogers for the whole series. Ryan Harris has lasted two Tests, but a third, back-to-back would be asking a lot of his resources and Nathan Lyon’s performance at Old Trafford was, at best, disappointing given that Graeme Swann took six wickets, despite being unwell on the first day. There may well be a case for deciding that a slow bowler – Lyon did little to quieten the whispers that he is that and not a genuine wicket-taking spinner as Graeme Swann, much derided by Australian supporters as over-rated, completely out-bowled him – is a luxury at Chester-le-Street and playing Jackson Bird instead.

With 146 runs for Shane Watson at 24.3 and a sequence of scores that goes 13, 46, 30, 20, 19, 18, his place as an opener lost and Phil Hughes looking good outside the Tests, it is even possible that the latest change in the side may be for Hughes to win a rapid re-call and Watson to join the in-out batting hokey-cokey. With a start in every single innings but only once managing to pass 30 the selectors may feel that the more hit and miss Hughes offers a better chance of a decisive score.

Australia’s biggest problem, despite the big score at Old Trafford, remains their fragile batting. With Pattinson and Agar out of the side, Michael Clarke averages more than double anyone else in the likely team. Brad Haddin has two fifties, as do Chris Rogers and Steve Smith, but all average under 32. England remain overwhelming favourites with the bookies to win at Chester-le-Street and Australia cannot reasonably expect to depend on Michael Clarke to do it all on his own a second time.

A Bad Way To Win

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Rain wins the Ashes

 

August 6^th

 

[09:00 CEST] Rain was the only winner after England made yet another dreadful start, leaving Australia in poll position to win the match although, with 95 minutes of play possible and slightly over 20 overs bowled, we will never know what might have happened. Given previous form, Australia might well have felt at 27-3 that the match was theirs, only to watch England rack up 260-6 before time ran out. In this series England have made quite dreadful starts in every innings only to end up with a serviceable total because the Australian bowling lacked the penetration to finish the job that it had started. It is one of the delights of Test cricket that we will never know what might have happened if the match had been played to a finish.

One thing that was clear was that when play started late and wickets tumbled, an England win rapidly became out of the question. Unfortunately, playing to survive is not an England strength, at least until the last pair are together. Australia maintained the pressure and Ryan Harris showed just what might have been if his constitution had been a little less frail. As it is, he is, at 34 in mid-October close to the end of his career. Australia now face a difficult decision whether or not to play him at Chester-le-Street on Thursday, having had a heavy load in this Test and bowled more balls than he had ever before sent down in a Test at Lords.

For England, the good news was that the Ashes are now retained. The bad news is that the way in which they were maintained has made the sceptics scoff and Australian fans are now pointing out that England are extremely lucky to be 2-0 against the run of play in the series. Certainly, to obtain a draw thanks to rain and not thanks to a solid batting performance on the fifth day was unsatisfactory in the extreme.

Neither side can feel particularly happy with its performances so far. Although three of the top four runscorers in the series remain English, the starts that Cook and Root are giving England are a cause for real concern: in six attempts they have not managed a partnership of 50, which compares very unfavourably with the Cook/Compton combination. Trott, at the vital position of 3, has just 122 runs in the series, almost half of them in a single innings. When your opening pair are not making starts, it is not reassuring that your #3 is in scratchy form too. Once again, Nick Compton has quietly made runs for struggling Somerset, in a pressure situation with defeat staring them in the face and you wonder if splitting Compton and Cook was the right move; maybe boring Nick Compton making boring 30s and 40s to wear down the bowlers would have been a more profitable situation, even if he did not amass the runs that Joe Root has amassed in the series (although almost all of them came in a single, match-winning innings). In truth, this has not been a series for the batsmen. Only Bell (76.2), Clarke (63.8), Root (48.4), Broad (38.5) and Pattinson (36.0) average over 35. Tail-end hitting has proved effective with tired attacks, but the top order has needed grit, not flash.

You feel though that Australia still do not know their best batting order and this continues to be an England advantage. For the second innings at Old Trafford it changed yet again and, although Steve Smith made a score in the first innings, having looked too high previously at #6, he was pushed up to #5. Cricket is a story of ifs and buts but, had Smith fallen cheaply in that first innings, as he should have done, Australia would, most likely, have struggled to make 300.

The series now moves to Chester-le-Street, where seamers tend to thrive. There, England will be sorely tempted to rest an exhausted Jimmy Anderson and to play the local boy Graeme Onions in his place. What Australia will do is anybody’s guess. Not to many have accurately predicted their sides in the three Tests so far.

Rain May Be The Only Winner

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Rain Leaves the Match Delicately Poised

 

August 5^th

 

[08:00 CEST] Rain and some fighting play have left this Test match delicately poised with both sides entering the final day thinking that they will be able to win if the rain relents. There will surely be an overnight declaration leaving England a minimum of 96 overs to score 332 to win: a generous 3.46 per over that England would fancy themselves to make on this benign pitch. Australia would have preferred to set 400, or even 450 with the best part of four sessions to bowl, but now cannot bat in in the morning and expect give themselves time to bowl out England.

After some fighting batting by the tail – Matt Prior’s second top score of the series, although a sequence of 1, 31, 6, 1* & 30 is not a sequence he will be proud of and yet another useful knock by Stuart Broad, giving him 24, 65, 33 & 32 in the series – took England comfortably past the follow-on, Australia were left with a difficult balance between attack and risk knowing that the weather forecast was poor both for yesterday and today. As it was, there is a danger that if they over-attacked and were bowled out cheaply, England could be left with a not too challenging chase. Batting on too long would not leave his bowlers sufficient time to dismiss England a second time, England having batted almost 140 overs in their first innings. In the end, England took wickets with sufficient regularity that Australia were never able to score at the sort of pace that they would have desired to set up a really big target that would avoid any slight risk of defeat and leave England with the sole option of defending against defeat. The intervention of bad light and rain has made Michael Clarke’s calculations even more difficult.

Right now, this is the sort of nightmare scenario for Michael Clarke because the time/run equation is not a particularly difficult one. If England bat all day, assuming that the forecast rain relents and lets them, they will not be far from making the target and, were they to need 140-160 runs after Tea with plenty of wickets in hand, would fancy their chances to make the runs. However, from Australia’s point of view, keeping England interested in a run chase may be their best chance of winning: if the batsmen shut up shop, they should not be dismissed in three sessions.

Some fans have looked at the time remaining and attacked Michael Clarke for not declaring with 260-280 lead to give his bowlers more time to win the match. This surely cannot be a serious suggestion, because 260 to win in 4 sessions is the sort of offer Santa Claus would make. These are the same fans who labelled Andrew Strauss “defensive” for not setting the West Indies 180 to win in the Caribbean in 2009: the fact that such a declaration would have handed them the match never occurred to them.

If the predicted rain arrives, a soggy draw will be favourite. If not, all four results are possible, unless Michael Clarke decides that he does not like the odds and bats on for another half hour to try to boost the lead to 360-380. Right now though it looks as if he has to risk going 3-0 down to give him a chance of pulling it back to 2-1.

[09:00 CEST] All that may be proved irrelevant. First word is that the rain is tipping down in Manchester and play looks unlikely. This could lead to England retaining the Ashes today. Only once, in 1928/29 have England ever retained the Ashes after 3 Tests of a series of at least 4 matches. Even then, in the more relaxed atmosphere of the time it took 36 days from the start of the series for it to happen, as Tests were so much more spaced, with two weeks and, sometimes, even three between them. Today is just 25 days since the series started.

Magnificent Australia Fan Life Into The Ashes

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Australia’s Great Opportunity

 

August 4^th

 

[09:00 CEST] Australia have a magnificent opportunity to push for victory today and to get back into the series. England are 34 short of the follow-on, with Broad and Prior at the crease and only Swann and Anderson to come. Without Pietersen’s century England would be in a mess. However, with rain threatening, if England get past the follow-on mark things will get tricky, because there will have to be a careful balance between the target and the remaining time. This is definitely the moment when England would appreciate Matt Prior discovering some batting form and making a 50. The third new ball should not come into play and the old ball should be pretty soft by now. It is the sort of situation that Prior should thrive in and a 50 from him plus 30-odd from Broad and/or Swann would be manna from heaven for England.

The fortunes of the attacks of the two sides have been contrasting. Whereas England relied on Graeme Swann who managed a 5-for despite obviously not well, while the seamers looked threatening, but were unlucky, Australia’s spinners are yet to take a wicket (despite plenty of near misses), but the seamers have looked magnificent. On a fifth day pitch that was turning even on the first day Graeme Swann may yet prove to be a decisive force in the Test.

The key to this Test has been the fact that Australia have, for the first time in the series, picked a side with the best possible balance and their best attack. They have had some luck – as England did in the first two Tests – and have used it. Steve Smith should never have reached 25, but made it count for a big score and, with runs to defend, the bowlers have been magnificent on a good batting surface.

If the bowlers can make one last effort and knock over England’s last three wickets quickly, the win should follow. If England could get the deficit down to 150, strange things may yet happen if Michael Clarke over-attacks.

Australia are showing that this series will not end in a 5-0 blowout. That can only be good for the series. However, England need just one good day today and the Ashes will be retained.

Australia Have a Great Chance to Win Here

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Australia Come Roaring Back

 

August 3^rd

 

[10:00 CEST] Thanks to a mixture of some gritty batting and a late DRS brainfade Australia are right on top in this match. The day was marked by two quite extraordinary uses of DRS. First, David Warner confirmed his pantomime villain status by making a DRS challenge to a thick edge to slip. Quite what possessed him to review was not obvious. Just why his captain at the other end allowed him to waste a challenge in that way was even less obvious, but led to a lot of ribald speculation that Warner had threatened to show his captain that a spell in South Africa had benefitted his boxing skills as well as his batting, particularly as Michael Clarke was as aware as anyone else that Warner had hit the ball hard. The England fans have taken to David Warner even more warmly than the Barmy Army did to Mitch Johnson and enjoyed watching the replays make him look pretty silly.

In the evening though, with England having made their best start of the series – this is not saying much as Cook and Root still have not made a 50 partnership – one thing that England could not afford was to lose a second wicket. So, when Root edged behind, who better than Tim Bresnan to replace him as nightwatchman? Except that, after facing 15 balls for just a single, a delivery from Siddle flicked his trouser pocket. Australia went up and the catch was given. Everyone assumed that Bresnan would review and be reprieved. He did not review. Even with the erratic responses to reviews coming from the TV umpire’s room in this series, he surely could not have been out on review. Such is the state of disbelief though that Tim Bresnan may have thought that having missed the ball by some distance was no reasonable grounds for reviewing a catch.

With three days to go Australia have an excellent chance to win this match if they can take a couple of wickets this morning and leave England under pressure. Right now England desperately need Cook to make a big score and show that the captaincy is not affecting him. Even though Root’s big century has sealed his position, the whole idea of dropping Compton was to ensure good starts:: a best opening partnership of 47 in 5 attempts is just not good enough. If England avoid the follow-on a draw should ensue. However, the words “Adelaide 2006” have been mentioned. That was a freak result but, it shows that strange things can and do happen if a side relaxes too much thinking that a draw is certain after a big first innings total.

Australia Come Good

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

A Great Day for Australia. A Bad Day for Cricket.

 

August 2^nd

 

[09:00 CEST] Yesterday I asked the real Australia to stand up and pointed out the similarities to the 1988/89 Ashes series, which England won 5-1, but not before Australia came roaring back into a series that looked dead and buried with a big win in the 3^rd Test. The bad news for Australia in that series was that, having built a position of strength in the 4^th Test with a substantial first innings lead, that should have seen them level the series at 2-2, they proceeded to suffer a massive second innings collapse that let England back in. If you are an Australian you may prefer to ignore such omens.

Before discussing yesterday, it is as well to remember that people looked at the first day of both Tests so far, jumped to a lot of conclusions and then watched as Test and series failed to unfold as they had concluded that it should. You should never judge a Test until both sides have batted and, sometimes, as in Adelaide 2006, not even then do reality and punditry coincide.

One thing though is clear: this was just the day that Australia needed and the day that England fans knew had to happen sooner or later. At 129-3, shortly after lunch, Australia seemed in danger of slipping to an inadequate first innings total… again. That they did not was down to two factors: Aussie grit and a huge slice of luck.

It has been distressingly obvious during the first two Tests that the umpires in this series have been having a poor series. It does not help that the ICC has almost no choice. Of the elite panel of twelve umpires, eight are English or Australian and this excluded from standing in the series. There is also the increasing suspicion that the scrutiny of DRS is affecting the decision making of the umpires in this series. Unfortunately, DRS had the sort of day that is turning even its most fervent advocates against it.

By the end of the day it was evident that something was seriously wrong with the set-up of the technology. Snicko was showing signals when the ball was nowhere near bat, pad or stumps and the camera showed it flying through empty air. Even when Snicko showed an obvious sound from something – correctly synchronised or not – HotSpot was showing no mark. If you were the third umpire you had little to help you and plenty to muddy the waters. What is the third umpire supposed to do when there is a review, he can hear a loud sound – on one occasion loud enough that the radio commentators could hear it over their effects microphone – yet HotSpot shows nothing and Snicko only registers a sound a metre after passing the bat?

In such a situation there were going to be winners and losers. Usman Khawaja was, most definitely, a loser: his bat was nowhere near the ball, yet he was given out and, somehow, the third umpire decided that there was no conclusive evidence to overrule the decision. In contrast. Steve Smith was out three times before reaching 25, most notoriously when Broad trapped him in front with a ball that would have hit middle stump half way up: that England could not review it was down to two previous escapes, one when Hawkeye showed that the ball would have hit fractionally (perhaps 2-3mm) off centre of leg stump, making it an umpire’s call and another when there was a loud sound as the ball passed the edge, but Hotspot showed nothing and Snicko showed a clear signal with the ball well past the bat in no man’s land.

To his credit, Smith took his luck in both hands and made it count for 70 not out, accompanying Michael Clarke to a deserved century. The partnership is worth 174 so far and has put Australia into a position where they are getting close to the point of not being able to lose. The new ball has come and gone and this morning, its remaining shine is England’s last chance to get back into this match.

After Shane Watson had thrown away yet another start and Khawaja’s innings was ended prematurely, Rogers, knowing that he was getting close to the last chance saloon in the current Australian revolving door selection policy made 84. Rogers was unfortunate to fall victim to the distraction caused by constant hold-ups due to movement behind the bowler’s arm. However, he has now made his place safe for the time being with a wonderful attacking knock. Michael Clarke though showed the skill and application that shows why people quote the phrase “form is temporary, class is permanent”.

England know that this was definitely a pitch where losing the toss would be a huge disadvantage. There was some big turn already and there is a real danger that they could find themselves batting last in very difficult conditions. If Australia can get to 450 they know that they can apply huge pressure.

 

Abysmal Difference or Evenly Matched Rivals?

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Will the Real Australia Please Stand Up

 

August 1^st

 

[09:00 CEST] Reading the postings by Australian fans on different sites has been interesting. Some have taken a rather despondent line of doom and gloom. Others have suggested making a major clear-out for the rest of the series, filling the side with young players and letting them develop. A few suggest that England have been extremely lucky in this series, are right out of form and ready for the taking. One suggestion based on this last opinion has been to propose playing Warner for the injured Pattinson, leaving Australia with only three specialist bowlers (“three is more than enough”), including the injury-prone Harris and the injured Agar. This sounds horribly like the defeatist strategy that England tried in their horrific 1986 Caribbean tour, when specialist bowlers were sacrificed to try to reinforce a batting line-up that consistently failed to make runs. England lost 5-0 and only in one Test of the series were even in with a minimal chance of salvaging a draw.

In fact, Australia’s squad is pretty young. Only Haddin and Rogers are over 35. Six players are under 25 and 11 under 28. If Australia keeps faith with them, the squad could develop into something quite useful in a couple of years. Of the bowlers, only Harris is close to the end of his career; all the others should have at least 5 or 6 years in them at this level. Unfortunately though, a losing streak such as Australia’s – which currently stands at six – brings calls for major changes. The selectors are under pressure. Players are under pressure. And the pressure to drop the lot and bring in new players becomes overwhelming: of the top eight at Lords, only Michael Clarke’s position could be considered safe and, even he might not be unless the rot is stopped soon.

So far we have seen one close match and one where the margin was abysmal. Which one represents the true level of the Australians? At Trent Bridge runs from the tail came close to compensating for the horrible inadequacy of the top six. At Lords, England’s top six massively outscored Australia, despite losing early wickets. Have a look at the scores in the two Tests when the 6^th wicket fell:

	England	Australia	Difference
1st Test, 1st innings	180	113	67
1st Test, 2nd innings	218	164	54
2nd Test, 1st innings	274	91	183
2nd Test, 2nd innings	344	136	208

In two Tests England have already aggregated 512 more runs for the first six wickets than Australia. It is a reflection of just how badly the Australians have batted so far. All of England’s top six have at least one fifty to their name so far and have registered 3 centuries and 5 fifties, compared to Australia’s 5 fifties.

However, you should never write off an Australian side. Even in the Packerless series of 1978/79 Australia still managed a big win in the 3^rd Test after England had won the first two and should have won the 4^th Test too after managing a big first innings lead. Once again, England are two up after two and are facing a much better Australian side than the one that Mike Brearley’s tourists annihilated in the end 5-1.

The equation is simple for both sides. Only an Australian win will keep their chances of regaining the Ashes alive. A draw will retain the Ashes for England. An England win will seal the series.

Only in 1886 have Australia ever been whitewashed in an Ashes series of more than two Tests and that was only a three-Test series. It is asking a lot for England to go two better, yet already speculation about a 5-0 result is rife… and hugely premature. If England were to go 3-0 up then, just perhaps, people should start to dream but, right now, the series is not even won yet.

What has been clear from the first two Tests is that the reading that fans placed on the match after the first day was invariably found to be way out and, even after two days, it was not always obvious which way the wind was blowing.

Everything indicates that England will be unchanged for Old Trafford. The changes in the Australian side will say a lot about their state of mind.