I just can’t join in the general dismay about England’s limp and dull display in this test match so far.
Today, no one remembers the Oval test match of thirty two years ago – an anticlimactic and insipid draw in which England did not play particularly well.
That’s because, it being 1981, the previous three tests had been among the most sensational of all time, and we had achieved our most famous Ashes series victory in history.
2013 may have hardly lived up to that staggering summer, but I can guarantee you this – no one will care about this Oval test ever again.
Even if Australia win, the significance is slight. There’s been much talk that Australia’s superiority here has given the side the momentum leading into the re-match this winter. The Telegraph’s Scyld Berry, who rarely gets it wrong, has even hypothesised that Alastair Cook’s drop of Shane Watson on Wednesday may come to be seen as the moment which marked the transfer of Ashes power from our side to theirs.
In 1998/9, we won the fourth Ashes test, after the series had already been decided. A turning point? Australia won the following test, and then the next series by a margin of 4-1.
In 1997, we won the last test, at the Oval, again a dead rubber. A turning point? We lost the next Ashes 3-1.
I could go on. In 1994/5 we won the dead fourth test, but lost the fifth, and then the following series 3-2. In 1993 we were once again victorious in a dead Oval match. A turning point? You can guess the rest.
And that’s even if Australia win here. They might, but they still need sixteen wickets in two days, weather allowing – having taken only four today – and probably a few runs, too.
Some strange things have been written about Australia’s batting in this match. After Durham, their line-up was rightly excoriated – with Watson and Smith singled out (or to be precise, I suppose, doubled out) for blame.
Now they’ve got some runs here, suddenly they’re made out to be champion bladesmen of the highest stamp. But what was the situation and who were the bowlers? They made their centuries against, in effect, a second XI, and with nothing at all at stake.
Test cricket is rarely won by racking up runs or wickets unless they come at a relevant time. Rather, it’s won by superiority at the big moments, the defining passages of play which actually decide the outcome. This summer, we have won almost all such moments, and Australia very few – which is why we’re three-nil up.
It’s also now being suggested that Australia have now found a settled batting line-up. On what evidence?
For a start, there is nothing remotely settled about a line-up which changes every single match – not just the personnel, but the order.
And are these six batsmen really their long term future? The much-vaunted David Warner has failed in three of his five innings, and at Durham he played very well till it mattered, and then he got out. Chris Rogers has become Graeme Swann’s bunny. Watson and Smith may have made hay in this match, but how will they fare against Chris Tremlett instead of Simon Kerrigan? And James Faulkner?
That’s not to say that we ourselves don’t have issues to worry about. The return series this winter will not be easy, by any means. But it will come down to how robustly we can bat, and how penetratively they can bowl, on what will be truer pitches. Whatever happens here at the Oval is completely irrelevant.
