Australia doing enough – day one at Adelaide

michael-clarke-smiling-gett

Australia 273-5 stumps

On the face of it, this test is delicately poised. It probably is. All three results are obviously still possible. What most observers seem to be missing, however, is the broader context.

After losing in Brisbane, England really must win this game. Nothing else will do. A draw isn’t enough with Perth – a graveyard for English cricket – just around the corner.

Unless we win this match, there’s a strong possibility (or is it more or less a certainty?) that we’ll be heading into the Boxing Day test 0-2 down with two to play.

Can you see England winning the last two tests to salvage a drawn series? Call me a miserable negative git, who sees a half-full glass as bone-dry, but I’m afraid I can’t. Not this England team.

The toss yesterday was therefore huge. Actually, ‘huge’ doesn’t quite say it. It was ‘enormous’, ‘humungous’ and ‘gigantic’ rolled into one – especially after we picked two spinners.

Before the start of play, I texted a few mates about the importance of batting first. We all concurred that if Australia won the toss and made 400+, it would be incredibly difficult for England to retain the Ashes.

In this context, Australia have had a massive day. With Clarke (who looks in imperious form) and Haddin, who averages over a hundred at this ground, still at the crease, a good score looks pretty much inevitable. The Aussies tail looks pretty useful too.

This might seem overly pessimistic – hey, what do you expect from a neurotic England fan whose formative years were shaped by embarrassment and humiliation at the hands of the Aussies – but I just sense that England are a team in decline.

Before the series started, Shane Warne pointed to the age of England’s players, and implied that decline was inevitable. He was talking hogwash, of course, as Australia’s players are pretty much the same age as ours. However, one cannot ignore the fact that this team hasn’t played well since India. And let’s be frank, India was actually an aberration. In the key series before this, we lost at home to South Africa and got humiliated in the UAE.

With Jonathan Trott’s future in doubt and Andy Flower on the cusp of stepping down, a period of transition probably awaits.

I still expect England to win the Ashes pretty comfortably at home in 2015 – Clarke won’t be the same force in two years time and our young players are better than Australia’s – I can’t escape the feeling we’ll have to take a little short term pain for long term gain.

Put it this way, there’s no way in the world Andrew Strauss’ team would have dropped three crucial catches in 2010/2011. They were confident in their ability and bang in form.

This time around, the confidence levels just aren’t there. Too many key players are out of form, and the new guys will need time to settle.

How typical that when Haddin cut Monty straight to backward point at the end of the day, the catch fell to Michael Carberry, a newbie.

New players don’t feel entirely comfortable in their surroundings. The result? Carberry dropped an absolute sitter.

That moment summed up England’s predicament. Things simply aren’t going our way. Had the catch been snared, we would’ve ended the day full of optimism. As it stands, however, a big partnership between Haddin and Clarke seems almost inevitable tomorrow.

Catches win matches – we actually dropped three today – so unless England can escape this cricketing truism, we aren’t going to win this match. And if we don’t win this match … well, you know the rest.

James ‘pass me a noose and that chair over there’ Morgan.

2 comments

  • Great article. Completely agree with everything, accept…………

    Why the assumption that if England don’t win here they’ll be heading to the MCG 0 – 2 down. I would have thought 0 – 3 is a far more likely result.

    I wouldn’t count your chickens for 2015 either. As we learnt in Aus, losing is habit forming. When we lost McGrath, Warne, Gilly etc. we fully expected the talent from “Australia A” to slot in and just carry on where the older guys left off.
    As everybody knows the actual result has been somewhat different.

    It may be a little early to call it but if I was you I’d start rehearsing my “Do you remember 20010 when we………..?” conversations if you want to smile and talk about the Ashes for the next few years.

    PS – I missed the Haddin – Stokes incident. What was the problem this time?

  • PPS. Isn’t it interesting how words sometimes last longer than intended by the author?

    TFT Sep 2013 – “All these factors combined to bring about the farce in Southampton on Monday, which saw England supporters charged £60 to sit for eight hours in freezing temperatures and be entertained by a stellar cast of such international heavyweights as Chris Jordan, Ben Stokes and Michael Carberry.”

    When does Jordan get a run?

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