I know, I know, the highlight of your Ashes series are my dynamite Ashes waffles. A series of comment pieces veering from incoherence to searing insight and very quickly back again.
I take this opportunity to welcome myself back to the pages of our esteemed/knackered old website and hope your time reading this is not totally wasted!!! My time writing it certainly was!!!
Going forward without Clarke and Rogers (and Harris) and hearing precious little banging on the door, you wonder what the future holds for Australia. But is it really so bad? A 3-2 defeat in seemingly alien conditions.
Lyon is an able spinner for any Test team. Johnson, Starc, Hazlewood, Siddle & M Marsh give them tidy bowling options with Cummins also in contention. Nevill hasnt done much wrong (as opposed to the always whinging Haddin who obviously dropped the Ashes (Root on 0 in the first Test) then created backroom unrest when fairly dropped, team game mate, get over it).
Its the batting they need to sort. Warner and Smith have the ability to obliterate attacks in no time, but who else? Watson and Voges are 34 & 35, but even with this imperfect pair they'd still need two more batters just to field a top 6. S Marsh might eventually step up, but we're already clutching at straws. S Undries did well in the 4th Test, but not heard from him since. Where is that Nathan Agar these days?
Since starting a job that keeps me down the pit 23 hours a day, 6 days a week, my opportunities for playing and watching our beguiling sport have become rather limited. I've not watched more than a few minutes of this series live, but have caught all the highlights on council telly and listened to a fair amount of slavering from the Anachronistas on TMS.
This adequately qualifies me to load up the old scattergun, fail to take proper aim and begin spraying grapeshot indiscriminately. Where to begin?
I suppose the short summation of the 2015 series would simply read 'inconsistency and unpredictability'.
The closest match was a 169 run margin.
1st Test - Eng win by 169 runs
2nd Test - Aus win by 405 runs
3rd Test - Eng win by 8 wkts
3rd Test - Eng win by 8 wkts
4th Test - Eng win by an innings & 78 runs
5th Test - Aus win by an innings & 46 runs
England won the series, as the home team usually does. Quelle surprise amongst most of my favourite easy targets, the commentators, who mostly backed the Ozsters pre-series.
Here and now I predict Australia will win back the Ashes down there the next time.
What transpired isn't what anyone understands to be proper Test cricket. I'm not saying what we got was better or worse than the 'proper' way. Indeed, I'd say we're simply witnessing a change in cricketing era. It will have good points and bad. Don't fear change, embrace it I say (are you listening No voters, ha, no doubt more of this sort of stuff later, but just remember, vote Yes next time).
For a while there Test cricket was treated to the odd session where a maverick like Sehwag or Gilchrist would shake things up by hitting two balls in the same over for 6. Two overs in a row. It seems things have turned full circle. The curiosity now is the innings-building, leaver-of-the-ball. We were even just 10.2 overs shy of a seeing two day Test. So much for the argument in favour of 4 day Tests, they're currently barely lasting 3 (when typing this paragraph, away off in the distance I can hear Smudger rumbling something like 'bring back the bloody draw').
The easiest ways to explain this of course are the emergence of big money 20/20 tournaments, better bats and contractions of boundary ropes (think I heard that Bradman only hit two sixes in his Test career, totally over rated obviously, indeed I see on Wiki his best bowling was just 3-35, giving me the chance to repeat my figures of 4-3 just this season and still not a single peep from CricketScotland).
Within all this lie Australia's fundamental weaknesses. The basic organisation and cohesion of Australian cricket just doesn't seem to be there. Firstly, the pool of under 35 talent to choose from is shallow. Then the selectors make incoherent selections in which the captain seems to have little say. Lets look at the visiting skipper.
"At 4 there is a patently unfit Michael Clarke"
KF on the Ashes 2010-11: (Part 1) - England Win the Ashes! 04/12/10
Clarke is a shadow of the player he was/could have been, primarily due to injury. I was telling the Aussie selectors years ago to pick fit players. But they know best. That Clarke has played when nowhere near fit displays both his own can-do attitude and the lack of fit or able alternatives. I think his decision-making has been quite average with his retirement looming inevitably causing some distraction (eg his review after nicking it).
But, and this is a big but, the Phil Hughes tragedy also appears to have taken its toll on Clarke. When one person primarily shoulders the burden of a national sporting tragedy, how can any normal measurement apply to their subsequent sporting performance? His demeanour these last few months is very reminiscent for me of the way Kenny Dalglish shouldered so much of the burden after Hillsborough. Clarke's retirement has been overdue I think, but he's more than earned it and now deserves to rest his body and mind as much as anyone.
But, and this is a big but, the Phil Hughes tragedy also appears to have taken its toll on Clarke. When one person primarily shoulders the burden of a national sporting tragedy, how can any normal measurement apply to their subsequent sporting performance? His demeanour these last few months is very reminiscent for me of the way Kenny Dalglish shouldered so much of the burden after Hillsborough. Clarke's retirement has been overdue I think, but he's more than earned it and now deserves to rest his body and mind as much as anyone.
Going forward without Clarke and Rogers (and Harris) and hearing precious little banging on the door, you wonder what the future holds for Australia. But is it really so bad? A 3-2 defeat in seemingly alien conditions.
Lyon is an able spinner for any Test team. Johnson, Starc, Hazlewood, Siddle & M Marsh give them tidy bowling options with Cummins also in contention. Nevill hasnt done much wrong (as opposed to the always whinging Haddin who obviously dropped the Ashes (Root on 0 in the first Test) then created backroom unrest when fairly dropped, team game mate, get over it).
Its the batting they need to sort. Warner and Smith have the ability to obliterate attacks in no time, but who else? Watson and Voges are 34 & 35, but even with this imperfect pair they'd still need two more batters just to field a top 6. S Marsh might eventually step up, but we're already clutching at straws. S Undries did well in the 4th Test, but not heard from him since. Where is that Nathan Agar these days?
England on the other hand seem quite settled. Cook has deflected most captaincy criticism for the time being alhough I think he's no better than average as an on field skipper, a role woefully under rated at the top level. Cook handing Australia the Oval Test a good example. Everyone knows why he chose to bowl, but he shouldn't have. Here is me six years ago;
"How on earth can teams, in such supposedly enlightened times, have absolutely no clue how to read conditions? I plead now for any qualified academic’s out there to get a PhD arranged to look into this. It might even be as simple as just procuring a barometer. "
KF on the Ashes p4 12/08/09
Alex Tudor told me via the radio that during his 9 years at the Oval, no matter what, it was ALWAYS a bat first pitch. Cooky bowls. England lose. Hardly mentioned. Criminal.
Elsewhere Root has been wonderful and always provides some immature mirth due to the antipodean connotations with his name. If only England could uncover a Jack Pump, Harry Jump or Julian Onenightstand to keep the theme going.
Moeen Ali is a real pleasure to watch while Broad and Anderson have been their usual selves, superb when conditions suit, humpty when they don't.
Two looming problems are the 'other' opening slot where Lyth will obviously struggle to continue. And a spinner. More on this in a minute.
Only two points left for anyone still reading!!!
I’m sure the use of ‘technology’ will force players to play more fairly, a process I think has already started. Surely a good thing. Bottom line is that more correct decisions are being made, games aren’t being spoiled by howlers from the umpires and players are in the main being forced to be more honest or being exposed when they aren’t"
KF on the Ashes 2010-11: (Part 4) - World Domination Beckons 08/01/11
DRS is proving to be excellent. Umpires seem to make less bad decisions. Matches are not unduly affected by wrong calls. And maybe most importantly, players behaviour, almost unnoticed, has markedly improved. You never see bowlers screaming and charging at the umpire any more. There is simply no advantage to be gained by it.
Further improvements I'd really like to see is where for instance an umpires not out call is upheld when the ball is shown to be 'only' 49% hitting the stumps, this should surely be out. Or at the very least a team shouldn't lose a review. If a ball is reasonably predicted to hit a stump reasonably enough to dislodge the bails, it should be out. Yes there was enough doubt for the ump to say not out, but Hawkeye predicts the likelihood it would have been out, so out it should be.
Lastly, looking forward for England, they're off to be trounced in the desert by Pakistan. The series will be lost the instant they announce their squad. It won't have the tools required to win. Namely spinners.
Pakistan will pick 2 or 3 average spinners (in their XI) who will tear England to shreds. England will start the series with Moeen Ali as their only spinner. The seamers will take none for plenty. Maybe in the second test, but probably not that soon, England will pick a second spinner. Still too little, too late. This is not rocket science, I leave you with my final dredged up quote from a previous blog.
"I'll make my view crystal clear. The four best spin bowlers in England right now should be in that Test XI. There is no sane argument against this. Not sure about that I hear you insanely say. OK. Chew on these series aggregates for the England bowlers in India so far:
(Overs/Maidens/Runs/Wickets)
Seamers 96 14 354 2 (r/r - 3.69, s/r 1 wkt every 288 balls)
Spinners 154 25 421 12 (r/r - 2.73, s/r 1 wkt every 77 balls)
If they played four spinners and they performed to those averages (those spin stats include part timers Patel & Pietersen too) and then someone said 'bring back Broad, Bresnan and Anderson in place of these keepin-it-tight-wicket-takers, you'd be locked up. And yet, that's where we seem to be.
One Spinner or Two - 23/11/12
"I'll make my view crystal clear. The four best spin bowlers in England right now should be in that Test XI. There is no sane argument against this. Not sure about that I hear you insanely say. OK. Chew on these series aggregates for the England bowlers in India so far:
(Overs/Maidens/Runs/Wickets)
Seamers 96 14 354 2 (r/r - 3.69, s/r 1 wkt every 288 balls)
Spinners 154 25 421 12 (r/r - 2.73, s/r 1 wkt every 77 balls)
If they played four spinners and they performed to those averages (those spin stats include part timers Patel & Pietersen too) and then someone said 'bring back Broad, Bresnan and Anderson in place of these keepin-it-tight-wicket-takers, you'd be locked up. And yet, that's where we seem to be.
One Spinner or Two - 23/11/12
Whatever happens, just remember, don't blame me, I voted Yes so what do I know!!!!! Tony Blair wouldn't listen, Jim Murphy was never going to listen, Cameron certainly won't listen, gadzooks, I even thought Coulson was guil...
Thats enough for now, go back to sleep - Lord Admin.
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