Well, we did it. Or to be more accurate, the rain did it. Despite losing three quick wickets in the only short passage of play possible, we got an ill deserved draw and retained the Ashes. Hallelujah.
The problem is, it all feels a bit empty. Nobody wanted it to materialise this way. Call me daft as a brush, but I didn’t want it to rain today. I wanted us to bat out the day with no alarms, just to demonstrate our blatant superiority: to show the Aussies that days 1-4 were an aberration, and we’re a class apart.
The thing is, I’m beginning to doubt we’re much better than Australia now. Not on current form anyway. Yes, we’ve retained the Ashes, but apart from a couple of sessions at Lord’s, we’ve been, well, a bit crap.
There’s little doubt our batting lineup is far better on paper – our batsmen have career averages just under fifty, while the Aussies (Clarke excepted) average in the high thirties – but form is incredibly important. Our batting was inferior on paper in 2005, but we won because we cobbled together competitive totals whilst great players like Gilchrist were going through personal troughs.
This time, it seems the other way around. If you encountered a neutral who hadn’t seen either team play before, and asked him which batsmen were the class players players on either side, Cook and Trott wouldn’t get a mention. They’ve looked really poor – short of confidence and working through technical problems – whilst average cricketers like Steve Smith have played above their ability.
The form of England’s big guns is a real concern going forward. When you consider that Root still doesn’t look entirely comfortable at the top of the order, Bairstow looks out of his depth at times, and Prior is also struggling for form and confidence, who exactly can we rely on to score heavily? There’s Bell and, err, that’s about it. Even KP wasn’t his usual self in this game. His hundred was lauded for its caution, but few admitted how scratchy he looked.
Batting was supposed to be our big strength coming into this series, but it sure doesn’t look like it at the moment. The top order has failed five times in a row.
Then we come to the bowling. The fact is that a five-man attack will outgun a four-man attack of similar ability nearly every time. England are too reliant on Anderson and Swann. The Aussies, on the other hand, have a better balanced attack:
Siddle and Harris are better than Broad and Bresnan. I’m sorry but they are; just look at their career records. Starc provides left-arm variation, whilst Watson offers more than a part-time threat: he’s bowled with deadly accuracy and floats the ball up to let it swing.
Clarke is also a far better captain than Cook tactically; he has more imagination and rarely lets the batsmen settle. He switched his bowlers around expertly; there was no weak link – and no let off for England’s batsmen.
Of course, it helps that Australia’s bowlers were able to bowl shorter sharper spells (and give it everything in those spells too) simply because there are five of them. Think England in 2005, but on a lesser scale.
My conclusion, therefore, is this: I’m worried about the next two games. The Aussies might be too reliant on Clarke, but if they can get enough runs on the board (even if its through the tail chipping in) their bowlers have the class to embarrass us again.
There are two sides to every argument, of course. It’s perfectly valid to shrug one’s shoulders and say “England rarely play well when they’re favourites; we’ll relax now and win the last two games comfortably – just like we did in 2010/11”.
The problem is that England will be favourites in the next two games, and they’ll probably be favourites down under too. If we can’t play well when we’re favourites, we’ll have to wait until we next play South Africa in order to actually perform well again.
Yes, form is temporary; class is permanent. Unfortunately, back-to-back tests is the realm of the temporary: they’re snapshots in time, with little chance for players to go away, practice hard and iron out technical flaws.
Cook and Trott will come good in time – but time is the one thing they don’t have. Yes, they will score runs in the future, but the near future? The next test starts later this week!
So we’ve retained the Ashes. But we haven’t yet won the war. Maybe this test match was like Perth – an aberration soon to be forgotten – but maybe it was symptomatic of deeper problems.
So excuse me if I’m not in the mood to celebrate. The Ashes was supposed to be a triumph. Today was a bit of a shower.
James Morgan
I completely agree with your comments above, England apart from a few sessions have been very poor. They have lost much of their arrogance that they had when they were on top of the rankings and played with far more confidence than their conservatory style at the moment.
There are too many players who have become casual and think there place is secured, which has become a problem for England when they shoudl be picking the occasional player who is red hot and dropping those who are under performing. Bresnan is not good enough, in fact I think Bopara is a good bet with superior batting and a good bowler. There is also no real pace in the attack which doesn’t give them that x factor and causes batsmen real problems. The attack of 2005 was great with pace, bounce and aggressiveness too.
Overall, I have been disappointed with England and think they need a real shake-up before the winter.
Really????? England with this team are unbeaten in their last 11 tests, could win 3 ashes series in a row having won in India for the first time in a long time have been ‘very poor’ and need a ‘real shake up’! Blimey, be careful what you wish for.
Whilst England have not been at their best, they have retained the ashes as quickly as possible. I don’t think the answer is to swap Bresnan for a batsmen who has barely bowled in first class cricket for Essex this season.
One way to look at the series is that with a bit of imagination we could be 2-0 down.
Granted Australia were lucky to get close at Trent Bridge given the incredible 10th wicket stands. But, given they got to within 15 of a win, or another Finn over, they could’ve gone into Lords 1 up.
if you swapped the weather at Lord’s and Old Trafford the HQ test could’ve been drawn, and you would expect that Australia would have closed out this test if the weather stayed fair.
There are clearer lots of ifs, maybes and dreaming if an Aussie had this view, but it does show that there hasn’t been a huge gulf between the sides. Unfortunately the quality has been poor, neither side can claim to have played well.
For me the next 2 tests are all about gaining confidence and the psychological edge ahead of the winters series. I’m hoping that the Aussies batting collapses again and they will have no clue who, let alone which order their top 6 will be made up of.
As some-one who supports England whilst living in Australia, I have had a difficult life – especially during the 1990’s. However, as a consequence I think I have a more realistic assessment of the ability of the 2 teams than your average rabid pom. Before this serious started I thought that anyone who thought we would win 5 – 0 (forget about 10 – 0) was either a troll or delusional (I’m talking about you, George Dobell). I thought that England were over-rated and Australia had much more depth in fast bowling (and that whilst most Australians can’t forgive Lyon for not being Shane Warne, he is a decent enough off spinner). Nothing I have seen so far has changed my mind. Whilst the batting will come good eventually, the bowling simply isn’t good enough. Neither Bresnan or Broad would make the Australian squad, let alone their test team. OK, that’s a bit harsh but Jackson Bird is a better bowler than both of them (I’d pick him ahead of Starc but what would I know). We should go onto win this series but if we are to avoid defeat in Australia, we need to find some fast bowlers……… fast
Excellent as always. The 17thMan
Oh you have to love the natural runderstated, always talking us down.
Let’s look at the series. England have the leading run scorers and the leading wicket taker. England have taken 20 wickets (twice) to win games of cricket. It doesn’t matter how we got there, we got there.
Cook and Trott, whilst not in form have chipped in with handy little knocks.
Root, is learning at the highest level, but hung on in there when needed to score a big century.
I kind of agree on Bairstow, but isn’t it comforting that England are perservering and not chopping and changing like the bad old days.
Australia got close at TB for 2 reasons. 1.) We batted like idiots in the first innings 2.) We bowled like idiots to Agar. We put that right at Lords.
At OT, the difference was MIchael Clarke, quite simply on of the greatest innings you’ll see, take his contribution out and the fact we got Smith out 4 times, they would have struggled to make 300 again.
They put us under pressure and guess what, we responded and avoided the follow on, which is all we had to do because we knew the weather was coming. We batted 140 overs to draw the game and retain the ashes.
Celebrate this England team, there are flaws, but we usually iron them out. And there is more to come.
Onions for Bres (or Jimmy if he needs a rest) at Durham and we’ll win that test.
Monty for Onions (Or Bairstow if he’s failed again) and we’ll win that test.
4-0 – Ashes retained in style. Move on to Australia to re-commence battle.eaction of the English. Always the pessimist, always understated, always talking us down.
Let’s look at the series. England have the leading run scorers and the leading wicket taker. England have taken 20 wickets (twice) to win games of cricket. It doesn’t matter how we got there, we got there.
Cook and Trott, whilst not in form have chipped in with handy little knocks.
Root, is learning at the highest level, but hung on in there when needed to score a big century.
I kind of agree on Bairstow, but isn’t it comforting that England are perservering and not chopping and changing like the bad old days.
Australia got close at TB for 2 reasons. 1.) We batted like idiots in the first innings 2.) We bowled like idiots to Agar. We put that right at Lords.
At OT, the difference was MIchael Clarke, quite simply on of the greatest innings you’ll see, take his contribution out and the fact we got Smith out 4 times, they would have struggled to make 300 again.
They put us under pressure and guess what, we responded and avoided the follow on, which is all we had to do because we knew the weather was coming. We batted 140 overs to draw the game and retain the ashes.
Celebrate this England team, there are flaws, but we usually iron them out. And there is more to come.
Onions for Bres (or Jimmy if he needs a rest) at Durham and we’ll win that test.
Monty for Onions (Or Bairstow if he’s failed again) and we’ll win that test.
4-0 – Ashes retained in style. Move on to Australia to re-commence battle.
A reasonably fair assessment, by far and away the biggest concern is the inability to get past 20/30 without losing one (or more wickets). 2005 and 2009 were won with a really solid platform opening up (and in 2009 Trott was as good as an opener when needed). Bairstow has never really looked up to it for me – I’d be surprised if Root doesn’t go back to 6 – he looks less comfortable when the ball is new. Not sure what the answer is opening up.
The bowling is too samey – I’ve never been a Broad fan, a little too inconsistent. I do like Onions, the nearest thing we have to McGrath and we need his ‘pressure style’ bowling. I like Tremett too as a slightly different option but no idea how he’s bowling at the moment…….
I think they’ll bring in Onions for Bresnan and that’ll be it.