Post-Ashes Thoughts

Five thoughts on the Ashes after England won 3-0

1.       This series was about Australia more than England

History will record England won this series 3-0, but this fails to reflect the closeness between the teams. Australia could have won the 1^st Test, should have won the 4^th, and would have won the 3^rd without the intervention of the weather. Ultimately England won the series by a significant distance not because they were the better side (which they were, but not by that margin), but that they played the most important moments better than Australia.

But the overriding themes of this series were all Australian. The sacking/resignation of Micky Arthur before the series, the Warner punch, Agar’s debut, Ryan Harris’ comeback, leg before Watson, batting order shuffles and dodgy radio interviews, Australia dominated the headlines, if not the cricket. Having seen four previous home Ashes series, never before have Australia quite so much been the story, and provided so many moments for the cricket media, whether these being the brilliance of a swashbuckling teenager or the idiocy of a drunken moron, wasted reviews or the best bowler of the series.

2.       England need to up the ante

England deserve great credit for what they do, because for a side with very few great players, they win a lot of games. Their top order batsmen wear down the pace bowlers (although not in this series) and then their middle order milk the spinners. The pace bowlers work the new ball, and then bowl tightly with the old ball, whilst Swann spins his web. It’s not particularly entertaining, its real grinding cricket, but it gets the results, and it was too good for Australia.

The problem is Australia are no longer the standard bearers for Test cricket. Grinding teams down works very well when your opposition are worse than you, but as perfectly demonstrated by South Africa last summer, it doesn’t work when the opposition are better. South Africa’s batsmen simply played out the new ball, knocked the seamer around in the middle order, and blunted Swann. Their bowlers were simply too explosive for England, with the four seamers finding wickets on a regular basis.

For England to beat South Africa, they cannot try to grind them down. The only times South Africa have looked under pressure whilst winning away in both England and Australia have been when first Kevin Pietersen and Michael Clarke took the attack to their bowling, whilst their batting was hustled by the sheer guts and energy of Peter Siddle. To beat the South Africans, England must be able to take the attack to their bowlers, and the batsmen in particular must be prepared to risk dismissal to get the rewards for scoring quickly.

3.       Australia are slowly healing

Australia have now lost seven or their last nine Tests, several of them by large margins, despite only ten months ago being one victory against South Africa away from being the Test number one team in the world. Yet they may be in a better position than they were on that day.

Even if the Aussies had won that Test, their ranking was heavily based on performances in 2010, and based around pillars that were bound to disappear. Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey could not go on forever, Michael Clarke could not keen pounding double hundreds forever, and the decline was inevitable. Now that it has happened, and happened in such jarring fashion, it dampens the expectations on a team that is good but lacks both knowhow and the confidence to win Tests such as the one at Durham.

Towards the end of the series in England, Australia were beginning to bring things together. Hopefully, both for Australia and the cricket public, Ryan Harris will finally have an injury free run and show the world how good he is. Shane Watson may finally have found a home at three, Chris Rogers was an inspired, if short term, pick, Steve Smith has shown he now has the ability to match his Test ready temperament, and the young trio of Starc, Pattinson and Faulkner have shown they can get Test batsmen out. Free from the pressure of being in the race for being the best side in the world, the Aussies will have room to grow in time for the 2015 series.

4.       At last a signature series for Ian Bell

Before this series, Ian Bell was one of England’s more divisive players. To his fans, he was a player of rarely seen beauty who had made runs in some of England’s biggest wins, and to his critics, his technique hid a player incapable of making runs under pressure. It’s a failing Bell has admitted to in the past, and for him, this series buried that hatchet.

He made significantly more runs than anyone else at a significantly better average, made more hundreds than his teammates put together, and only one less than the Australians. It is arguable that of his twenty Test centuries, the three he scored this series are his best three. All were under pressure, all three came in low totals, and England won all three Tests.

In truth, three innings made Bell, all in 2009. One was his torturous 28 in the first innings of the first Test against West Indies, made batting at three, which saw him dropped from the Test side. Bell that he was forced to evaluate his career at that point, and realised that if he wanted to be remembered as a significant Test player, he needed to make pressure runs. The second innings was Jonathan Trott’s debut hundred, removing the need for Bell to bat three. The third was a gritty 76 to save the 3^rd Test in South Africa, against Steyn in full flow.

Since then, Bell has looked a different player. At home in the middle order (he averages 51 at 5 and 60 at 6), he’s scored runs more consistently and more heavily, and ultimately this summer, he can say without doubt that he won England the series.

5.       Darren Lehmann doesn’t get a free ride for his first series

The decision to sack Micky Arthur before the Ashes was a brutal but necessary move for Australia. If, as reported in Australia, that the confusion over Arthur’s role was the main factor in the poor relationship between Michael Clarke and Shane Watson, and that he had neither the skill to manufacture peace between the two or the mental toughness to drop one, then he had to go. Darren Lehmann was essentially given a free series to assess his players, and has been praised for bringing the fun back to the Australian setup. But in terms of the cricket, Lehmann has been found well short.

Firstly, Lehmann has been incorrectly praised for the selections of both Chris Rogers and Brad Haddin. They were Arthur’s picks, which Lehmann benefitted from. He does deserve credit for keeping Steve Smith on tour and then playing him, but this should be negated by the horrible decision that was the selection of Ashton Agar. Agar may well one day be a Test bowler, and his 98 was glorious to watch, but it shouldn’t hide the fact this was a selection error of Darren Pattinson proportions. Agar was patently not ready to bowl tightly at Test level, and the strong performances of Nathan Lyon, a man treated poorly by Australia for the crime of not being as good as Shane Warne, highlighted this glaring error.

Lehmann seems to be trying to bring a blokey element back to the Aussie side. But this isn’t a good club side; it’s an international side up against the very best in the world. Keeping Shane Watson happy may be an achievement but it’s no good to be his mate when he needs an answer to why he keeps getting pinned lbw. Making Peter Siddle laugh is no help when trying to find a plan to get Ian Bell out. Bringing drinks on dressed in your whites doesn’t help your left handers play Graeme Swann. Giving a matey interview to an Aussie radio station mid series doesn’t correct Mitchell Starc’s action. When England arrive in Australia they will know everything about every single possible player the Aussies will pick. Does Lehmann have it within himself to prepare the Australians well enough in return?

And three thoughts on the women’s Ashes, which England won 12-4

1.       The format was a huge success, but are the double headers?

The women’s series, for the first time, was decided across all three formats instead of just a one off Test. The idea was two-fold, firstly hoping to encourage positive cricket in the Test match, and secondly to create a greater buzz around the series as it would now last for three weeks as opposed to one. Whilst the Test match remained dull due to the points gained for a win (6) being too high, it did allow greater media attention for the women’s Ashes, as people were interested in the new format, and a longer series gave greater scope for televised matches with something really riding on them.

However, the previous established orthodoxy of playing the women’s t20’s before the men’s games needs looking at. The success of t20 cricket is built on the very sound principle that the entire game should take less than three hours, meaning people don’t lose an entire day watching. Playing two t20’s back to back defeats this purpose. Whilst in the past it’s been used to raise the profile of the women’s game, England and Australia both can feel as if they are beyond that, and can attract significant crowds on their own merits, as proved by the first t20 at Chelmsford last Tuesday, which saw virtually full capacity for a standalone game.

2.       Heather Knight comes of age

Whilst 12-4 looks a very comfortable winning margin, England were in all sorts of trouble during the Test match, 113-6 replying to Australia’s 331-6 declared, still needing 68 to avoid the follow on halfway through the second day. They were dug out of this hole by 22 year-old Heather Knight (helped by the stunningly obdurate Laura Marsh), who scored a virtually chanceless 157 to avoid the follow on and the get England nearly level, and thus ensure the draw. She backed this up during the 2^nd and 3^rd ODI’s, making a punchy 31 followed by 69 in a match winning partnership with Sarah Taylor, and despite a poor t20 series which ended with a badly torn hamstring, she was rightly named player of the series.

The short term benefit for England is that after a disappointing World Cup where they desperately lacked a third heavy run scorer after Charlotte Edwards and Taylor, they seem to have filled both this role and that of Edwards’ opening partner, a long term weakness. But the long term benefits for Knight may well be far greater. The big question for the women’s side is who will replace Charlotte Edwards as captain when she retires, and unlike when Edwards herself became captain, there is no obvious successor. If Edwards retires as expected in 2017, Vice-captain Jenny Gunn will be 31, and the other two obvious candidates both have considerable drawbacks: Holly Colvin is in and out of the side, and Sarah Taylor’s workload is already significant due to both her dual role and the extra attention her talent brings. Already considered to be a player who does and says the right things, Knight may well have jumped the queue to be Edwards’ successor.

3.       Average is not good enough for Australia

Although Australia entered the series as both t20 and ODI World Champions, this gave the false impression that there was some distance between the two sides. England have now won 10 of their last 12 t20’s against Australia (one of those defeats was the World t20 final by 4 runs), and had England won the group match between the two sides in the ODI World Cup this year instead of falling 2 runs short, it would have been them facing the West Indies in the final. The sides were already close, and the loss of Lisa Sthalekar probably made England favourites.

However, given the Aussies only needed to draw the series, were the better side in the Test and then won the first ODI, they had plenty enough talent and all the momentum. A lot will be made in Australia of the sudden loss of form of golden girl Ellyse Perry, but the reasons for Australia’s demise are a lot more subtle than that. Instead of a number of players struggling, Australia’s biggest problem has been the number of average performances from players on the tour. Only Sarah Coyte and maybe Erin Osborne can say they have definitely enhanced their reputation on this tour, whilst a number of players have stood still. Whilst Meg Lanning and Jess Cameron made five fifties between them, these are players that the Aussies need to score hundreds. The rest of the batting was characterised by wasted starts and slow contributions, and the bowling whilst serviceable often lacked a cutting edge. The Aussies need bigger and better to regain the Ashes down under.