A tentative prod

From The Ramble, following Australia’s victory in Perth.

Fresh warnings, despite the acclaim bestowed on the Aussies, must be heeded.

 

For the past two years Australia has been inconsistent, woeful one match, exceptional the next, a common feature of ageing and inexperienced teams.  Four players, Hussey, Johnston, Harris and Watson, humbled England in Perth.  The rest, aside from small bit-parts, hardly dictated the pace.  Some, like Ponting and Clarke, are horribly out of form.

 

To succeed in Melbourne’s Boxing Day Test, the Aussies will have to perform as a team.  While Johnson and Harris bowled superbly in Perth, it is a stretch to believe they will claim 18 wickets between them at the MCG.  Ben Hilfenhaus and Peter Siddle must lift and actually take wickets.  It isn’t enough to slow down the scoring and beat the bat occasionally.  Similarly, if Hussey, Watson and Haddin fail with the bat, no one else can be trusted to score runs.  None of the batsmen, aside from Hussey, Haddin and Watson, are averaging more than 23 for the series.

 

Australia promised an extravagant Christmas feast.  At the MCG, 84,345 fans were fed spam.  The collapse, all out for 98 on the opening day, was brilliantly predictable.  Predictably brilliant would’ve been much better.

All the hope of Christmas, the euphoria of victory in Perth and possible carryon into Melbourne was lost.  Good sides don’t get bowled out for 98 runs.

The technique was amateurish, too many catches behind, too many flashes of the blade, tentative pushes to the swinging ball and a lack of footwork.  Talented batsmen lacking confidence, I hope I don’t snick this one, and getting drawn into the shot instead of leaving the ball alone.  England bowled well, but getting the ball in the right spot isn’t often enough. 

Only Phil Hughes tried to belt one, and he was vilified for it.  Most were out to a prod, toe in the water instead of bombing, scared, apprehensive and indecisive.  Meek. Out.  Gone, wondering about getting an edge instead of getting runs.

The bowling was equally timid, short, wide, full or too straight.  Andrew Strauss and Alistair Cook made a mockery of the MCG minefield.  The first day, after the morning rain, lost humidity.  The ball didn’t swing.  The fast bowlers couldn’t land the seam on a drying pitch.  Steven Smith seemed overawed.  Ponting, impotent, shocked, a series forever altered, set defensive fields.

England finished the day at 0-157, hastening through the match, which was over before the end of the fourth day. 

Victorians, wounded and helpless as the rest of Australia, deserted the team on the first day, evacuating from the MCG, leaving the stadium more than half empty, compatriots embarrassed and angry, bitterly shunning failure on a day the country longed for.  Never before, during an Ashes Test at the MCG, had such a mass of people suffered together and moved out of the famous ground.  The disgusted walk was without discipline, a stampede out, fifty thousand fans gone from the massacre, leaving the English fans delirious with desertion.

There was no surprise when the team slumped to 3-37 in the first session, but it wasn’t as bad as the second Test in Adelaide or the third Test in Perth.  The first three wickets have yielded 100 or more runs four times during the series.  The table below shows what’s been happening with Australia’s first three wickets. 

	1st innings	2nd innings
1st Test	3-100	1-5
2nd Test	3-2	3-134
3rd Test	3-28	3-64
4th Test	3-37	3-102
5th Test	3-113

 

The first innings have been dreadful, 280 runs for 15 wickets, an average of 18 runs per wicket.  The second innings is marginally better, 305 runs at average of 30.  Michael Clarke comes in at fourth, yet he’s got to take responsibility for the dreadful starts.  For times for the series he’s been the third wicket to fall.  Only once, when he was the sixth wicket to fall in the first innings at Melbourne, has he batted deeper than the fifth wicket.

With Ricky Ponting out with a broken finger, Clarke, in the midst of a horror slump, made make his debut as Australian captain in Sydney, his home state.  The loss of Ponting didn’t hurt.  In four Tests this summer Ponting scored 113 runs at an average of 16.

Getting elevated to the captaincy didn’t inspire Clarke, a fiddly innings, out cutting for just four runs off 25 balls.  In the last five Tests he’s been out for a single figure score four times with only one half century, 80 in Adelaide.  He hasn’t provided one athletic moment that influenced a Test.  His belief in ability seems shot, which puts him in a difficult situation.  He’s the Australian captain, and seems neither ready nor capable for the mantle. 

In Melbourne, the batsmen played like men suffering diarrhoea, looking to edge one to retreat to the dressing room.  Getting bowled out for 98 in Melbourne set records, polish for the embarrassment.  It is Australia’s lowest Test score at the MCG, and the only time the Aussies haven’t made 100 runs in the first innings of an Ashes Test.  The rout was woeful. 

Peter Siddle, tight, aggressive and quick through 33.1 overs, took 6-75.  Johnson and Hilfenhaus got two wickets each.  Harris didn’t get a wicket, but he got a stress fracture in his left ankle.

His career could be finished.

Starting the second innings 415 runs behind set another record, the biggest first innings lead England has ever had over Australia.  Winning wasn’t an option, the margin the only variable.  Australia needed centuries from Ponting, Clarke and Hussey, cool heads to guide the team through crisis.

Instead, Watson guided Phil Hughes to the pavilion with the score on 53 when a defensive push into the covers turned into calamity.  In calling for a quick single to Jonathon Trott, Watson showed his capacity for lapses in concentration and an inability to learn.  Trott gathered the ball, threw magnificently, low and flat to Prior, who took the ball in front of the stumps and broke them with Hughes out by a foot.

It is unforgivable to get run out in a Test match.  It is worse that Watson continues to experience these lapses.  It was Trott who ran Simon Katich out with a direct hit in Adelaide.  It was Watson’s dreadful call that caused the run-out.

If a captain ever needed to deliver, it was in the second innings in Melbourne.  Ponting made 20 careful runs before an inside edge hammered his stumps.  There was no captain’s knock for the series.  There might not be another.

Steven Smith was plucky, scoring 38 in the second innings before getting out to a wide ball, attempting to pull instead of cutting.  Smith’s technique, whether batting or bowling, is best described as loose with clumsy flair.  He didn’t take any wickets, 0-71 from 18 overs.  Too often, a full toss or short ball ruined an over. 

Smith is an attacking player.  He’s aggressive, just 21 years old.  He shouldn’t be batting at number six, and was relegated in the fifth Test, but he has time to learn and should be persevered with.

Following the fourth Test, England won the Ashes in Australia for the first time in 24 years.  It is difficult to begrudge them that honour, particularly after being dominated for so long.  It is about time they repaid their fans who have travelled to Australia to watch.  The cricket has hardly been a contest, it often isn’t, and it hurts to lose.

There are eleven men right now who understand, with great accuracy, they weren’t good enough to win the Ashes.  How they reconcile with that will shape Australia’s future, and it will be fascinating to watch.

Ponting has now lost three Ashes series.  No Australian has ever done that.  How he comes back from this, by playing on or retiring, will be fascinating to watch.

The final Test in Sydney, sees Australia at 4-134 on a day ruined by rain.  The batsmen all succumbed to lapses in concentration, poor shot selection, key moments that hurt Australia.  They’re getting hammered – again.  How the team responds will be fascinating.

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