England wins Ashes, 16 months of barmy humour ahead
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When a team makes 160 on a powder-puff wicket (Malcolm Conn may not agree, but he is way wrong) they don’t deserve to win the Ashes. There are Australian fans who will say we lost because England doctored the pitch, they are also wrong. Not one wicket in this Test had anything to do with this pitch. And if the pitch was so bad, how come the two biggest totals were scored in the last two innings. Hey? Answer that. Exactly. Australia made mistakes in this Test. They should have picked a spinner (England should have picked two), they should have let Ricky Ponting call (at least when running quick singles with Mr Cricket), and they should have not lost eight wickets in one session of cricket. That is where they lost it. Stuart “no one thinks I can play but I can” Broad went from project player to Sir Stuart Broad in just over an hour on day two. Then England’s fourth South African-born top-six batsman, Jonathan Trott, made a hundred and the game was well out of reach. Everyone expected Andrew Flintoff to be the main man is this Test, however he was pretty useless: 29 runs, one wicket, one catch and one (all important) run out was all Freddie could muster in the best win England have had this decade (that wasn’t in 2005). He still goes out in style, as an Ashes winner. Australia bowled England out once in this series, and won that Test. Two times they failed to make 250 in the first innings and lost both of those. Individually Australia dominated, but they can take their seven hundreds back home to Australia without the Ashes urn they wanted so badly. It was a tragi-comic end to Ricky Ponting’s last English Ashes Test. Just when Australia was making the English fans nice and nervous (even more than usual) Hussey — who played a possibly career-saving knock — called through Ponting who was hesitating and ball watching and Australia’s Ashes ended as the gimpish Flintoff picked up and hit the stumps. Michael Clarke was run out soon after when he hit the ball off the spinner, took off only for Andrew Strauss to run him out from a freakish effort at leg slip. Some days life is against you. It seems fair enough. Neither team really dominated enough to win this series through a convincing win. So two run outs makes complete sense. England had the best of three Tests, and Australia, two. So their win makes some sort of sense. The Ashes never leave England, even when Australia wins, but in 16 months Australia get a chance to bring the metaphorical urn home. For the next 16 months we have to endure open-top buses, MBEs for scratchy batsman and all the jokes about how rubbish we are. *Listen to Crikey’s Leigh Josey and Jarrod Kimber’s “I can’t believe England won the Ashes” podcast |
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35 Comments
the better side one, the side that played better one. Although I thought that the captain was going to save them again with his prodigious batting talent. Unfortunately it was his less than prodigious judgement(not sending back a non striker after playing the ball forward and sacrificing himself) put the last nail in.
Is there any truth to the rumour aired last night on the bbc that the captain refused the spinner so he could reward the players for their last game effort. If so may it be the death knell for the club based Australian side, where blokes are allowed to play themselves back in to form after failing.
Congrats England, look forward to seeing if they can do it on our dungheap.
Does this ashes team get knighthoods too?
Thank you for some fine punditry
Cheer up Jarrod. The English supporters are already fearing a 5-0 drubbing when they next come to visit. It’s not so much England won, (rather than ‘one’) but that Australia lost that the English are celebrating. Read Simon Barnes in the London ‘Times’ (and Stephen Fry’s tweets).
My son, who lives in London, recently asked me who I thought would win the Oval test. Unhesitatingly I offered up England; not because I wanted them to win, but because they seemed to have some semblance of a game plan. I am yet to identify anything approximating such from the Australian team. I know they have a “batsmen’s weaknesses” audit courtesy of a former opener but that is hardly a game plan.
Who called whom through and who should have played have little bearing in my view on the outcome if our team does not have a clear idea how they wish to play against the other team whose two shining stars are carrying injuries. In the case of Flintoff, one who is also contemplating retirement from test cricket.
Intelligent Australian captains like Sir Donald Bradman and Richie Benaud, I feel sure, had a very clear idea about what they were trying to achieve and how they were going to execute their plans given roughly equal treatment from the cricketing Gods. Steve Waugh was a captain who worked hard to constantly build pressure on his opponents through identifying weaknesses and exploiting them. Others, I don’t feel have exhibited this ability and when the team strategist left the fold a couple of years ago, I have been hard pressed to find any instance where it hasn’t been purely the performance of a champion that has won matches for Australia. And, when those champions fail to perform which invariably they must, Australia has not won, parochial crowds notwithstanding. Now we have less champions and we are starting to falter. And this will continue to happen until cricket spawns a new generation of strategic thinkers.
You can always tell the end of the era when the Press starts predicting indisputable victorious outcomes. If you happen to believe these test match dullards which, clearly the Australian team must on occasions do, then more fool them and you.
South African-born players for England: Basil D’Olivera, Tony Greig, Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott. Makes 5, I think…
Good point Richard. The problem is that Ponting is the only superstar left in the team. The others are good, but have yet to really prove themselves over a number of years. In a couple of years, this bunch of players will be pretty good, and in their very early thirties which seems to be the Golden Age for Australian cricketers.
Its also to be hoped, my hope, that that is the first and last time Warne is invited by BSKYB to join their excellent commentary team. This idiot may be talented with a text pad on a cell phone (yes he was a bloody good cricketer, goes without saying) but a commentator he is not, in my opinion. His anti umpire stance was unprofessional. Fair enough to suggest a couple of decisions were sus, but last night his incredulous disbelief that the first 2 lbw decisions were not out until he saw the replays, then to question kiwi Bowdens decision not to go to the 3rd ump over the stumping decision, made his earlier doubting of both umpires eye sight, ludicrous. Also some of the comments regarding female spectators caught on camera were bordering on the lewd. He is a smoking gun, not much common sense and unpredictably loose lipped. Good cricketers do not always make good commentators. He has done a lot for the game, be great if he continued doing it off the field away from a michrophone.
Well said Richard. My sentiments exactly.
Nobody game to mention Johnson’s performance? I wonder why.
Why John? Why?
Johnson’s performance was forgettable.
My point entirely.
A waste of space.
Oh.
Yeah, I would have liked to see Lee get a chance. He might have been underdone, but he has experience on his side and would have been far more consistent. It’s unfair on the rest of the team if they need to carry a player until they find form.
Johnson and Hussey should have been replaced after the first Test.
Richard
I too was a little amazed regarding Warnes remarks about the stumping. A magnificent decision which appeared risky if wrong. Good to see an umpire get one absolutely right and the commentators dont give the credit. Unfair
It was said that England sent a B team to the Ashes here in 2007 and I reckon we sent an A- team to England this year.
Justice in these things would have the selectors automatically fired for failure along with any underperforming players. And the Captain is a selector, too.
As for Warne, he is a self-confession idiot (recall his attempts to cover himself in the diuretic affair), however, he livens up an otherwise dull English commentary team and voices the questions many viewers would have.
Although Clarke’s maturity comes into question at times, I don’t want to see Ponting head up another Ashes team, regardless of pressure from him or others to try to square up the score.
Australia is destined for a rocky few years and sacking Ponting would just make the road rockier.
I don’t think Ponting needs to be sacked. I think he needs to stand down of his own volition. It really is time for some fresh air at the top of the test team.
… I think there is something to the suggestion that mateship overrode logic in the selection process.
The problem with giving Clarke a go as Captain is what if he’s no good? Then we’ll need to try a different Captain and we’ll start to look like the West Indies, a different Captain every couple of years.
Maybe Ponting isn’t a great Captain or maybe Australia isn’t a great team anymore?
Never the less, yes, there seems to have been some logic missing from the selection process.
Every new captain goes through a baptism of fire. Ponting was pretty ordinary to begin with (some would say that he only ever shone in the role when he was heading a team of champions — it’s another thing altogether to have have to lead on the field) and Border didn’t want the job but he grew into it.
I think Clarke has what it takes, he just needs to become a little more serious in his on-field demeanor but I think that would come with a test captaincy.
I always thought Warne would be a far better on field captain that Ponting because I think Warne has a better cricket brain (the only brain he has in fact), but of course off field was out of the question.
But back to Ponting: I think he’s reached the end of his run and as the famous slogan goes: It’s time.
… but my guess is that within Cricket Australia, where sentimentality rules, and they’ll let him have another crack in 2011.
Let’s see what happens in the ‘tween season.
I stand corrected on my earlier post: I thought the captain was part of our panel of selectors but these days it seems he’s “heavily consulted”.
Yes, you might be right. We’ll see.
Re: the Captain being a selector, New Zealand just officially made the Captain and Coach of their side selectors (but only so long as they are Captain and Coach). It’s an interesting move… only time will tell if it’s a good one.
Being a good player doesn’t make you a good captain. Look at the English experience since Vaughan. And being inspirational isn’t all its cracked up to be either. You need inspirational leaders to create suicide bombers but they don’t necessarily achieve anything positive.
I think Cricket Australia needs to think seriously about getting selectors who don’t need the job and a captain who isn’t full of self admiration when he sees Captain beside his name. Being captain is any cricketer’s boyhood dream but somebody should tell these boyhood dreamers that being the captain is more about taking tough decisions like putting people you dont like in ahead of your friends for the sake of the country. Being captain means sacrificing yourself to ensure that others who are better players are able to deliver to the full potential. Being captain is about you being the chessmaster allowing the battle to be won by your knights. Of course if you are the team’s best player then this puts you in a sticky position and one, probably only Bradman ever negotiated effectively.
I believe that those current players who are out of favour must feel disheartened and find it hard to lift, even when they force their way into the team, while those in favour feel smugly secure and as a result overconfident. Neither situation is appropriate. An even handed captain who plays no favourites is always a better bet. I am not sure the annointed one has this level of maturity and maybe it is time to start thinking about what truly makes a good captain and select accordingly.
Take Clive Lloyd, he was a perfect combination of manners, talent and leadership. Mind you, he had a great team but he also managed some big egos skilfully enough for them to perform to their ability on almost every occasion they took the field.
“Of course if you are the team’s best player then this puts you in a sticky position and one, probably only Bradman ever negotiated effectively.”
That raises an interesting and I think salient point. Bradman was respected by his team members, but not liked. Border was known as Captain Cranky and that’s fine by me if being cranky means not standing around chewing gum and spitting on your hands but rather putting the wind up underperforming players. Steve Waugh was apparently not backward in telling you exactly what he thought of your performance either.
I’ve not heard of Ponting laying down the law, but I do see him internalization issues. Oh to be a fly on the wall in team meetings.
(make that *internalizing* issues. I have to learn to type or get a better spelling checker)
That raises another interesting point. Is there anyone in the Australia team who gives you the impression that they don’t want to be liked? Or to put it differently, is there anyone in the team — with the exception of Ponting — who has the experience, seniority and nerve to give a teammate a serve when they’re out of line or performing poorly?
You need a hard task master when things get tough.
Cheers Heathdon.
Pritam, way more than 5.
Ian Greig, Tony Greig, Allan Lamb, Basil D’Oliveira, Kevin Pietersen, Matthew Prior, Neal Radford, Chris Smith, Robin Smith, Andrew Strauss
and now Jonathan Trott. Those are just the ones I know of. Expect alot more in the next 4/5 years.
Not quite sure how Flintoff managed to deserve the description “gimpish” in the original article.
Lovely to see the whingeing about South African born players - I suppose a country that got dudded by the great dullard Kepler Wessels will have a thing about this.
This was a test series played by two average teams. Ponting might be a great player but he is a poor captain and gets “upset” far too easily. Johnson spent most of the series stomping around like a 12 year old. When you see one of the Australian “selectors” plopping out his beer gut every lunch break and glaring anytime anyone doubts the wisdom of his “insight” you get the strong feeling that such a task might be better given to someone who doesn’t have to play class clown for a living. He then capped it by saying that you “weren’t allowed to lose to England”! Poor bubba, my lickle heart bleeds for him.
I dare say Australia will beat England again in 10/11, but for all that the era of McGrath, Warne, Waughs, Taylor and Hayden is gone and the spoilt Australian sporting public will have to get used to losing again from time to time.
I think we should not go down the path whinging about Sth African born players in the English team. Australians should cast an eye over their other national sporting selections, before adopting that line if sore losing. Australian teams have a great sprinkling of “other” former nationals, lets start with soccer, athletics, rugby, swimming oh no dangerous ground
apologies
I thought ponting had the strike not Hussey. Still should have said no
“Not quite sure how Flintoff managed to deserve the description “gimpish” in the original article. “
Jarrod likens Flintoff to a gimp because of his injured knee Robert. Saying that, he’s one hell of a gimp.
Here’s Jarrod and your’s truly’s latest podcast for anyone who’s interested: http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/08/25/podcast-the-i-cant-believe-england-won-the-ashes-podcast/
I mentioned the South African born stat simply because it is amazing. Soon England could have 4 players in their top 6 who were born in South Africa, how can anyone say that is not a great stat? It wasn’t a dig, as Strauss and Prior are essentially English, and KP has an English mother. Trott is perhaps the least English, but he has English grandparents although he did play underage cricket for South Africa. None of them are pure mercenaries like Grant Elliott of New Zealand. But 4 players out of 6 from one country, amazing. With the amount of young South Africans qualifying for England the numbers could increase.
I should have mentioned this before, Trott is supposedly related to Albert and Harry Trott of Australia, his nickname is Leon (why can’t Australians have cool nicknames like this), and he actually bowls quite handy Steve Waugh/Craig McMillan style medium pace.
I was about to say that South Africa might be worried about losing all this talent, but then again, you could probably find a dozen or two State cricketers* in Australia, who if given the chance, could become quite accomplished international players for other countries.
* State cricketers who do not have a Cricket Australia contract.
Leon’s a cool nickname?
Rowan, You are probably spot on. Dimi Mascarenhas, Tim Ambrose, Geraint Jones and Darren Pattinson have all represented England in the last few years. Only one of them was a shield player. Brendan Nash is playing for the West Indies at the moment.
Leon Trotsky, compare that to Watto, BJ, or Sids.