Sprinkle Sprinkle

It wasn’t meant to be like this. It was my third trip to the MCG and on the two previous occasions I’d arrived with England already three nil down and would leave for Sydney a few days later with us down by four. But yesterday I saw England retain the Ashes in Australia for the first time in 24 years with victory by an innings and 157 runs to take an unassailable 2-1 lead in the series.

If Carlsberg made a perfect day of cricket then for the English cricket fan Boxing Day was it. Over 84,000 people were left stunned as Australia were routed for 98 only to see England surge to lead by 59 at stumps, with all ten wickets intact. The Australian fans were silenced whilst the long-suffering but eternally optimistic Barmy Army were pinching themselves in disbelief not just at the cost of the watered down mid-strength Victoria Bitter that passed for refreshment, but at the scoreboard. That England rammed home their advantage without taking their foot off the Australian throat indicates a team that is learning to seize the moment – there are still relapses and remember that the best two Test teams in the world are currently playing elsewhere in the southern hemisphere.

Australia avoided the ignominy of losing the Boxing Day Test before the conclusion of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race but it was a close race for line honours. When Ben Hilfenhaus edged Tim Bresnan to Matt Prior before lunch on Day 4 the celebrations could start. Rarely did an England team play with such verve and focus but it is becoming an increasingly common sight. To do it against Australia in their own backyard is as rewarding as it gets. 

It has been curious to observe the reaction of Australian cricket fans from the old Bay 13. Volubly critical of their own team, especially the performance and leadership of Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke, yet there is a lack of consensus of how the team should proceed. It is clearly time for change but to what? There are few obvious contenders waiting in the wings. No batsman, other than Michael Hussey, was up to the mark and he was on the verge of being dropped before the Ashes started. Despite fielding more bowling options than England there has been an absence of control and lack of penetration. The attack leader, Mitchell Johnson, was missing in action for three of the four tests and he was marmalised by both the English batsmen and the Barmy Army for hours on end at the MCG.

England have embodied a squad united by a sense of purpose, discipline and a common goal. Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan, who were not in the starting line-up in Brisbane emerged as game changing bowlers in their own right. The Australian replacements were not up to the mark: Philip Hughes and Steve Smith will go back to finishing school. The much vaunted Australian Cricket Academy that produced a seemingly endless conveyor belt of talent, for so long the envy of English cricket, has evidently been left unattended for too long. The Sheffield Shield, the toughest of first class finishing schools, has been reduced to a beauty pageant where any glimpse of promising talent is fast-tracked through to the national side after a handful of games.

There is much to enjoy in England’s cricket. They bowl with guile and discipline, in tandem to build pressure on batsmen by denying them width. In 2009 Justin Langer attached the label of “pussy” to James Anderson. Little did we know that Anderson would return to haunt the now current Australian batting coach in his guise as the premiere swing bowler in the world. Runs have been scored by batsmen prepared to see off the new ball and build an innings. Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott have prized their wickets in a fashion that the great accumulator, Sir Geoffrey of Boycott, would be proud to call his own. It has been the grafters rather than the dashers who have battered the Australian attack in to submission. Andrew Strauss’ captaincy has become more astute as he has grown in to the role since his appointment in January 2009. Great credit too must go to Andy Flower, a coach who has instilled a work ethic previously unseen in an England team.

For England, whilst the celebratory sprinkler dance was performed to the delight of the Barmy Army there is still work to be done. When the hangovers subside this England team will get back to work in Sydney. The management and players wouldn’t have it any other way. There is still a series to win.

Game On

Prior to Perth there was talk of England going unbeaten through the Ashes tour for the first time in 40 years. Some of this came from the England wicketkeeper. There is nothing like a 267 run pummelling to refocus the mind. Enough of this touring squad experienced regular beatings on this scale four years ago to realise that there would be a fightback from Ponting’s men following Adelaide.

The ‘psychological edge’ was meant to be with England as Australia had been hammered by an innings. Australian cricket was in disarray. The captain and vice-captain couldn’t score a run, the meter had been running for 4 years as the nation searched for a spinner and the bowling attack could only locate the middle of English willow.

It was the return though of pace, power and swing in attack that did for England. Skittled twice for a total of 310 runs it was a confrontation with a rejuvenated Mitchell Johnson, the fastest bowler on either side, and a receptive pitch that the haymakers of Brisbane and Adelaide couldn’t cope with. Johnson showed what English players and fans alike had only heard about in dispatches. When he clicks, even if he doesn’t know how he does it, Johnson is a game changing cricketer.

The only batsman that showed the requisite skill was Mr Cricket or Mr Bloody Cricket as Michael Hussey is probably referred to in English team meetings. Andy Flower’s thinktank will unveil plan G in Melbourne following Hussey’s sixth consecutive score of more than 50. He batted like a champion, well supported by a disciplined Shane Watson.

At 69-5 on the first day an English win looked on the cards. The Ashes were there for the taking but from that point on Australia bossed the game. England’s bowlers, with the noteworthy exception of Tremlett, pitched short too often allowing runs to flow. Wickets don’t need to come only from outstanding deliveries but can be taken by two bowlers working in tandem to apply pressure. Swann was attacked from the off and unable to settle on an unhelpful pitch for him and Finn was profligate despite continuing to take wickets. Australia got away. All of Australia’s pace attack kept at the English batsmen and didn’t let up.

It is a novelty for England to head to Melbourne with anything other than pride to play for. 90,000 people will roar their support at the MCG on Boxing Day. The pitch traditionally offers assistance to spin but after the demolition job that Johnson and Ryan Harris completed it is to be expected that the groundsman will leave grass on the pitch negating Swann and playing in to the hands of Johnson. There will be tough selectorial issues for England to discuss; will the out of form Collingwood be replaced by a fourth seamer? Will Swann lose his place if the pitch is tailored radically or, most likely, will Finn pay the price for a lack of control in a team reliant on each bowler exerting control?

Lest the doom-mongers get too carried away with the Australian rebirth: Ponting and Clarke are still woefully out of form, their search for a spinner continues, Hussey will surely fail at some point and the series is level at one win apiece. Touring teams always struggle in Perth with Melbourne and Sydney historically proving far happier hunting grounds. In contrast to their predecessors this England team has good spirit and can move on with optimism having achieved much so far on this tour. It is now time for England to show that they deserve to take the Ashes home by bouncing back as winners. Happy Christmas. I’ll see you on Boxing Day.

Stop press

Hold the back page. The kangaroo still boxes. With hostile fast-bowling, sledging and stumps flying Australia did what they used to do best and turned around the course of the 3rd Test inside two sessions of the second day.

Written off by all and sundry following his dismal showing in Brisbane and no-show at Adelaide it was Mitchell Johnson with 6 wickets that strong-armed the recovery. England collapsed to lose all their batsmen in 39 overs for 109 runs and slump to 187 all out with a deficit of 81 on first innings. On a day where Ricky Ponting woke to read the Australian press hanging his ‘rudderless rabble’ out to dry it was his fastest bowler with most to prove who stepped up to the mark. Johnson was too hot to handle, pitching the ball up, swinging it at pace and ripping out the immovable England top order. The scramble for padding in the away dressing room echoed the fortunes of their predecessors.

Johnson’s record at the WACA is an impressive 27 wickets at an average of 18. He is a bowler that likes a wicket with some grass on it. If he didn’t come good here then Andrew Hilditch’s predictably irrational selection committee would have had justifiable grounds for putting Johnson out to pasture with his less favoured venues in Melbourne and Sydney on the agenda. It was outstanding fast bowling at a time when he and the team needed it most.

Turmoil, fat ladies singing, Shane Watson as captain and tattooed players were all themes in the Australian press today. An online bookmaker has already committed to paying out on England returning home with the urn. Steve Waugh, the last Australian captain, cast doubt on the future of his successor in the team let alone continuing his run as the most successful Test captain of all time.

Whether this galvanised the Australian team or maybe they couldn’t play any worse but there was fire in their performance in the field. Verbal sparring climaxed with Siddle’s dismissal of Prior eliciting dialogue from the protagonists with Ponting also taking the chance to vent. Today Johnson supplied the actions to support his words. It made for a captivating contest between bat and ball.

Despite the predictable failures for Hughes, Ponting and Clarke some cafeteria bowling from England augmented the Australian lead to 200 by stumps. The talismanic Hussey remains in situ and can put the game beyond England in the morning. Ponting’s series total from six innings is just north of 100 runs but he will have a more comfortable ride tomorrow from his former peers who now reside as fully lunched up members of the Fourth Estate.

Grand Ole Oprah

The Oprah Winfrey farewell roadshow was playing out east in Sydney this week. With government funding of £2.5m the aim was to boost Australian tourism but it’s a moot point, in these austere times, whether the money would have been more prudently invested in restoring the fortune of the iconic baggy green.

Out west in Perth today it was the touring Englishman that dominated another three sessions of Ashes cricket on the first day of the 3^rd Test. A display of insipid batting from the Australian top-order was compounded by the now customary display of inspired English fielding.

If everything that Andrew Strauss touches turns to gold then the opposite is true for Ricky Ponting. In came Steve Smith and the recalled Phil Hughes to bring some “humour” to the entrenched squad. It can be assumed that Ponting was also hoping for an improvement on a combined total of 9 runs. Mitchell Johnson, supposedly rested from the 2^nd Test, did show fight with the bat to top score but it will be his bowling that determines whether he is worthy of a place in the team. Sledging Strauss at the end of the day was not done from a position of strength.

Chris Tremlett deputised for the injured Stuart Broad and was England’s standout performer marrying 3 wickets to a miserly economy rate. The jet-lagged Jimmy Anderson, fresh from attending the birth of his daughter in England, only required a stretch after taking a catch and 3 wickets. For all the pre-match fighting talk the Australian batting performance was again well below par. In these run-drunk days of Twenty20 and flat pitches the Australian batsmen have forgotten the discipline of making tough runs and putting a prize on their wicket. Ponting’s dismissal at least will again be attributed to a stunning piece of fielding at a time when the captain needed to post a score. This was not Gary Pratt or Andrew Flintoff with a run out but Paul Collingwood MBE leaping and twisting to take a one-handed catch when the ball was well past fielding mortals.

Not since the days of Allan Border will an Australian captain’s legacy be defined by the Ashes as much as Ponting’s will be. To lose three series to England would be considered worthy by many sages of deportation to Van Diemen’s Land. Fortunately for Ponting he already has his home there.

England have the upper hand in the series. For Duncan Fletcher though it seems that the memory of coaching England to defeat in 9 of the last 10 Tests that England played in Australia is no longer raw. “My feelings on the third Test are split. As an ex-coach of the team I want to see England retain the Ashes. But a draw would surely be the better result for the sport. It is crucial for the health of Test cricket that this series holds the interest of the public.” I’ve not been able to find any England cricket fans that invested their hard earned money following the tours of 2002 and 2006 hoping for a draw in this Test. With 24 years since the last English series success on Australian soil the public is very much aware of the story bubbling down under.

The host broadcaster, Channel 9, are running their traditional classic catch competition and whilst the producers scrape around for Australian catches to feature – just 8 after 2 Tests – it is more concerning for the state of the game that the prize is a year of free Kentucky Fried Chicken. Whilst Oprah gives with one hand Colonel Sanders takes with the other.