Ashes loss comes down to bungled selections
Roar Pro
By Alec Swann, 24 Aug 2009 Alec Swann is a Roar Pro
Australia's captain Ricky Ponting, right, is bowled by England's Graeme Swann as wicketkeeper Matthew Prior, centre, looks on and Ravi Bopara jumps on the fourth day of the third cricket test match between England and Australia in Birmingham, England, Sunday Aug. 2, 2009. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Four years ago, Glenn McGrath sprained his ankle on a stray ball at Edgbaston, an incident that dramatically altered the course of the 2005 Ashes series. Six weeks ago, Australia had over ten overs at the England last-wicket pairing of Monty Panesar and James Anderson.
Their failure to wrap up what looked to be a certain victory came back to bite them – with interest – at the Oval overnight.
It didn’t seem possible after an abject display at Headingley, but England’s resurgence summed up the series as a whole.
Edgbaston aside, both teams had their moments. Both England and Australia dominated two Tests apiece and the difference came down to the fact that the home side won twice when they were in the ascendancy and the visitors won once.
Defeat will have been hard to stomach for Ricky Ponting and his side given their dominance of the five matches statistically, and especially so for the captain who now has two big black marks on his stellar CV.
But England won the crucial periods and, ultimately, that was the difference.
Chasing an unlikely target of over 500 at the Oval, Australia put up the expected fight, but their woeful first innings had already done the damage.
Mike Hussey did a decent imitation of a batsman saving his career. Ponting gave a glimpse, until his careless run out, of why he is the wicket opposition attacks crave the most. But that was about it.
They had left themselves too much to do on a surface not favouring fluency and, in truth, there was only one possible outcome.
In the postmortem, Australia will point to their badly under par 160 in their first go at the crease as where the game was lost, but other factors contributed heavily.
The first was the toss. The pitch was always going to be prepared with a result in mind whatever the powers that be said, and that gave the flip of the coin added importance.
That it was bone dry rather than overly grassy was an obvious ploy to use because it adds to the threat of all kinds of bowling. With that in mind, why on earth was Nathan Hauritz left on the sidelines?
Whether his omission was over-confidence or just a simple mistake, who knows, but it was a glaring oversight from a captain and coach who should really know better.
Shane Watson’s inclusion was a good move, as was Stuart Clark’s at Headingley, but Hauritz’s non-selection was a huge gaffe that ultimately proved costly.
And it will be 18 months before that error, and the loss of the treasured urn, can attempt to be rectified.
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vinay verma said | August 24th 2009 @ 8:01am | Report comment
Alec..to put Australia’s defeat down to Ponting’s “carelessness” in taking a single and the non selection of Hauritz is being simplistic and devaluing England’s good cricket. Haurtiz was unable to prise out Monty at Cardiff on a suppossedly helpful pitch. The bowlers had done the job at Headingley and good accurate seam bowling on a helpful pitch can be as devastating as a spinner. Broad bowled an exceptional spell and took the first four wickets in the first innings.
Strauss shielded Ian Bell in the first innings after Cook went cheaply. He took 23 of the 28 deliveries that Johson bowled in his first spell,
Flintoff’s pickup and throw to run out Ponting was the one act of genius the big man displayed this Test. He had not contributed till this point. Cricket is a game of centimeters and Flintoff exacted this with precision.
England won the big moments in this series and also did not panic after Headingley. Australian selectors panicked with Hughes and changed a potentially match winning opening partnership. This was a high stake series and Australia came up short. They have dropped to Number four and England remain at five. The current world ranking fairly reflect the relative strengths of the top five. There are now four (maybe five with England) that are capable of winning on any particular day. Test Cricket may,in fact,have been given a lifeline with this series.
Viscount Crouchback said | August 24th 2009 @ 8:10am | Report comment
Alec, your brother was magnificent. He’s displayed admirable pluck and skill throughout the series. You can be justly proud.
It was over-confidence that did for Australia. Apparently one of Australia’s leading sports-writers proclaimed in the press box at Headingley that “normal service had been resumed”. The comments of the Australian squad after the match hinted at similar levels of hubris. They obviously just thought they’d pitch up with the same team and roll England again.
Perhaps they don’t teach the Classics in Australia, but any schoolboy knows that hubris begets nemesis. It was duly delivered at The Oval. Someone should hand Ponting a copy of The Iliad for his plane journey home.
Greg Russell said | August 24th 2009 @ 4:33pm | Report comment
I read your comments BEFORE the fifth test about Australian hubris. I would have written the following at the time, but I was too busy. So I would just like to say that I am one Australian – and if you will permit the immodesty, one who knows a lot about sport in general and cricket in particular – who was always very nervous about the result of this series, even after Headingley. In fact I pretty much wrote off this series after Lord’s, but Headingley tantalized me by suggesting that I should dare to hope again.
The significance of losing the toss at The Oval was obvious before even a ball had been bowled, and even after the end of day 1 I was very aware that England had succeeded in advancing the match towards a result, and that in this regard their total was serviceable even if not formidable. By tea on day 2 it was clear that only two fates were possible in this match: an England win or rain delivering a draw. As far as I am aware there was not a drop of rain.
If it makes sense to say this, England deserved to win this series, even if they were not the better team. All the series statistics evidence the latter, but there is no point in trying to deny that England had a couple of crushing session wins, and on the back of these they were not undeserving winners of the series.
Collingwood vs Clarke is a good case study in this regard. Collingwood had a miserable series but his one innings of note gained England the draw that ultimately enabled it to win the series. Clarke had an excellent series that will probably see him named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year and will possibly see him assume the Australian captaincy (in my opinion he should – no Australian captain, even Bradman, should survive losing the Ashes twice). However in both innings Clarke went missing in T5 when his team really needed him.
The moral I take from all of this is that that you need great players to be sure of winning a series. Neither team in this series had great players, meaning it was solid players versus solid players. In such circumstances you can lose even if your solid players are more solid than the opposition’s.
Alec: there is such a thing as restrained gloating. It’s hard to take you seriously when you do not gloat at all!
Viscount Crouchback said | August 25th 2009 @ 12:26am | Report comment
Oh, quite. I should certainly not like to accuse Roarers of hubris. On the contrary, they seem unfailingly balanced and reasonable (with the odd exception). No, my criticism was very much of Ponting and his chums in the media (Conn, perhaps?) I’m well aware that the occasional arrogance of Australian cricketers is not reflective of the average Australian any more than the outrageous behaviour of Premier League footballers is reflective of the average Englishman.
As for the captaincy, I really hope that Clarke doesn’t get the job. Ponting can be irritating, but he’s fundamentally old school. I’m not sure I could stomach a chap (Clarke) who combines old-fashioned arrogance with new-fangled mediaspeak and celebrity drivel.
Marees said | August 25th 2009 @ 3:07am | Report comment
Greg, if you go by team balance, England are the better team. They went with 5 batters + bowling all-rounders (their bowling all-rounders, famously batted till no 11, in Cardiff).They basically maximised thier chances of taking 20 wickets(in thier conditions). Australia went with 5 batters + batting all-rounder like North. They (tried to) minimised their chances of losing 20 wickets. It was a fascinating battle and England came up trumps 3 out of 5 tiimes. In hindsight, if Australia had never picked Johnson for 5 matches and picked the best available bowler instead then the series result might have been entirely different.
Marees said | August 25th 2009 @ 3:11am | Report comment
I want to stress the point again that man for man England had the better BALANCED team then Australia.
Here is my squad based on the performances
1 Andrew Strauss ( Simon Katich )
2 PLAYER XXX ( Shane Watson / Alastair Cook / Phil Hughes / Ravi Bopara )
3 Ricky Ponting ( Ian Bell )
4 Michael Clarke ( Kevin Pietersen / Jonathon Trott )
5 Michael Hussey / Jonathon Trott ( Paul Collingwood )
6 Stuart Broad ( Marcus North )
7 Matt Prior ( Brad Haddin )
8 Andrew Flintoff ( Stuart Clark )
9 Graeme Swann ( Nathan Hauritz )
10 Peter Siddle ( Graham Onions )
11 James Anderson – sneaks in bcos of his batting ( Ben Hilfenhaus )
12 Steve Harmison ( Mitchell Johnson )
13 Monty Panesar ( Bryce McGain??? )
14 Graham Manou ( James Foster??? )
Greg Russell said | August 25th 2009 @ 11:11am | Report comment
Marees – it is a myth about England having the better bowling. Australia took 82 wickets in this series, England 69, end of story. You can theorize as much as you like, but the simple fact is that England got lucky in terms of the way in which the 69 wickets that they took were distributed. Broad and Flintoff are good examples. They bowled one good spell each but England were able to turn each effort into a test victory. Partly this was because of good luck (all those dud umpiring decisions at Lord’s, Strauss winning the toss at The Oval), partly it was because in a couple of moments of great need Australia simply were not good enough. It’s on account of the latter that I am not uncomfortable with England winning this series. But they also needed the luck. Under other circumstances, series statistics like the present ones might have resulted in a 3-0 win to Australia. C’est la vie. If sport were robotic certainty we would not all follow it as we do.
marees said | August 25th 2009 @ 2:04pm | Report comment
Greg, look beyond the statistics. Australia had better more experienced bastmen. They were supposed to dominate English bowlers. It was an ordinary English Attack but clearly superior to an ordinary Aussie attack.
marees said | August 25th 2009 @ 2:10pm | Report comment
Except for 1st innings in Leeds, Australia struggled to remove English tail-enders, but England had no problem whatsoever in cleaning up the australian tail, whenever the oppurtinity presented itself. Again, you HAVE to give credit for England for going with a 5-man attack.
marees said | August 25th 2009 @ 2:38pm | Report comment
just spotted this great article from cricinfo…
http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/422030.html
…I dont need to add anything more to this
Greg Russell said | August 26th 2009 @ 10:51am | Report comment
Marees – the fundamental cricket statistics – batting aggregate and average, bowling number of wickets and average – have stood the test of time as measures of excellence. If you want to believe, on the basis of this series, that they are of marginal relevance, then that’s your choice. However neither you nor Tim de Lisle will change my mind.
Note though that I said that the statistics are “measures of excellence”. I did not say they dictate the result. More times than not they will, but not always. This series was one such exception. As Sheek has written below, “Had Australia taken the 20th wicket in Cardiff, we wouldn’t be having this post-mortem.” The main reason Australia did not take that wicket was because half a day was lost due to rain. That is neither statistics nor English excellence – it was pure chance. Similarly, it was pure chance that Strauss won the toss on 4 occasions out of 5, and in particular that he won it at The Oval, which turned out to be crucial. In a long series like this, each side gets some good luck and some bad luck. But England got the majority of the luck in this series (where was the forecast rain at The Oval when Australia needed it, cf. Cardiff?), and that really is the reason why Australia’s superior statistics did not translate into retention of the Ashes.
As for Tim de Lisle’s theory about all-rounders winning the series, he may be right in this instance. But another principle that has stood the test of time is that successful TEST cricket teams are based on specialists. Who were the all-rounders in the West Indian teams of the 1980s? Who were Australia’s over the decade 1995-2005? The New Zealand cricket team is always falling for the temptation of choosing bits-n-pieces players, and it is always failing. South Africa under Cronje went down this path (remember when they had test centurions in every batting position?), and they never climbed to the peak. Now they are choosing 6 batsmen for their batting and 4 bowlers for their bowling, and they are much more successful (and I predict they will smash this England side in the upcoming series). The Indian test side is populated by specialists rather than players who are chosen for being able to do a bit of both.
If you want to believe that choosing players like Broad and Swann is a recipe for success, you can. But if you think back to England’s recent tour of the West Indies, you might change your mind.
That’s actually an interesting tour to consider, because England “won” all the statistics in that series and were the better team, and yet they lost. Sound familiar? One should not invent theories – as Tim de Lisle has done – to explain things that are better explained as being simply the vagaries of sport.
marees said | August 27th 2009 @ 2:07am | Report comment
Greg – I agree the english were very lucky. “England remain a modest team with much to be modest about ” excellent words from Gideon Haigh – in Wisden Cricketer http://wisdencricketer.com/blogs/tour/2009/08/25/the-2009-ashes-an-english-view/
However, I think England were very positive in picking 5 specialist bowlers (most of whom are handy batsmen) – despite the loss of kevin Pietersen. Australian’s 4 bowlers were not enough tyo take 20 wickets, except in Leeds.
yet they didn’t pick 5 wicket taking bowlers in any match.
It is probably a gamble to pick 5 bowlers and in the long run and going by statistcs 4 bowlers who take 20 wickets, is the better option. But I still stick to my stand and say that picking 5 bowlers is an attacking move. England were prepared to gamble in order to win and the were rewarded (justifiably so in my opinion) in the end.
Colin N said | August 27th 2009 @ 11:03am | Report comment
“That’s actually an interesting tour to consider, because England “won” all the statistics in that series and were the better team, and yet they lost. Sound familiar?”
Yes, and no-one really cared that England had the better stats. All that mattered to us, was the fact that we had just lost to a terrible West Indies side.
“If you want to believe that choosing players like Broad and Swann is a recipe for success, you can.”
I don’t see the point in this statement, because they both put in match winning performances, which virtually none of the Australians did. I’m sure most Australian fans would take Swann over Hauritz. For the record, he also bowled very well in the West Indies, hence the reason for his fairly decent average, one which could have suffered on very flat pitches, like those in the West Indies.
Brett McKay said | August 24th 2009 @ 9:05am | Report comment
Alec, I think the summaries offered last night, that England won all the big moments in the series is probably spot on. When something major happened, invariably England benefitted from it. Yes, there’s plenty of areas where it went wrong for Australia – including Ponting’s runout, and Hauritz not being picked, Vinay – but in the end, England were too good across the series.
I’ll echo the Viscount’s comments regarding brother Graeme. If Nathan Haurtiz goes away from this series with nothing else, it should be a DVD of Swann’s bowling in this last Test, particularly his spell post-lunch yesterday. His flight, speed, and control were superb, and he worked the Australian bats over as good as any quick could hope to. Yes, there was a bit of luck involved with M.Clarke and North’s dismissals, but you can put both down to the pressure Swann had created. He should have had Hussey three or four times, and it seemed there for a bit that Collingwood was doing his best to give Hussey every chance to make runs. Broad got the champagne and chocolates for this Test, but they could just as easily have gone to Graeme Swann.
Oh, and Alec, becuase I know you’ll be expecting this, I’m just wondering where you’re living now after putting the house on Australia last week??
(Had to be said)
Scrimshaw said | August 24th 2009 @ 9:12am | Report comment
Viscount,
Tony Greig is saying that the ‘Groundsman’ has a case to answer..could that be true?
Congratulations to England on their victory.Perhaps the nemesis you speak of has a horticultural ticket !
sheek said | August 24th 2009 @ 9:16am | Report comment
Had Australia taken the 20th wicket in Cardiff, we wouldn’t be having this post-mortem.
Australia’s problems go beyond Ponting’s captaincy. He’s not a one-man band. One key batsman (Hussey) & our key paceman (Johnson) had generally unhappy tours, which impacted on the team’s overall effectiveness. Guys like North, Hilfenhaus & Siddle stepped into the breech, but it wasn’t enough in the end.
Looking at the stats for both teams, it’s hard to fathom how England won the series, but there you have it. Australia dominates both the batting & bowling stats, but England won the series 2-1.
And I’m waiting for all those Roar fans who insisted only a moron would replace Clark with Hauritz for the final test, to apologise. But I’m not expecting anyone to put their hand up!
Anyway, in the end, I doubt Hauritz would have made much difference. Certainly not 197 runs worth, anyway.
vinay verma said | August 24th 2009 @ 9:31am | Report comment
Sheek..I was one that definitely advocated an unchanged team. Hauritz was unable to do the job at Cardiff. In hindsight Hauritz,may have made a difference. But the fact remains Australia were out coached and lost the key moments. I wouldn’t be rushing to throw the baby out with the bath water.
sheek said | August 24th 2009 @ 4:47pm | Report comment
Vinay,
Agreed. Whether Hauritz should have played the 5th test is inconsequential in the scheme of things. Yes, Australia lost the key moments.
Colin N said | August 24th 2009 @ 9:21am | Report comment
“Tony Greig is saying that the ‘Groundsman’ has a case to answer..could that be true?”
No, because the pitch was excellent, and both teams (in the end) showed that you could bat on it.
Jameswm said | August 24th 2009 @ 9:33am | Report comment
The pitch didn’t lose it for the Aussies – inept batting did.
England set aan obvious trap for MClarke in the first innings and he falls straight into it. Can’t they help themselves?
And what was Hussey thinking going for that quick single? It’s hard enough to chase 540 without running each other out.
Katich went off the boil later in the series and Watson couldn’t convert his starts.
They just weren’t good enough and lost to a so so English side.
Not a great weekend for Aussie sport that’s for sure.
Harry said | August 24th 2009 @ 9:38am | Report comment
What do you mean James, we won the Ladies Discus! Cricket? Rugby? Minority sports …
Mick of Newie said | August 24th 2009 @ 10:22am | Report comment
Australia’s middle order failed twice in the series and no one was able to right the ship.
England’s middle order failed a number of times but when they did the lower order stuck in.
A comment on Mike Hussey, if he makes that hundred in the first innings at Lords or the Oval Australian retain the Ashes. I am not in the camp that his career is saved. I think Aust will go back to a specialist opener at home and Hussey will have to keep Watson out of the middle order.
Fly on the Wall said | August 24th 2009 @ 11:02am | Report comment
At no stage did Australia ever look really settled.
The selection of Brett Lee was wrong and sent a bad vibe through the attack that did so well in South Africa.
Here’s Lee’s record in England: 3 tours, 10 Tests, 29 wickets at 45, going for 4.2 an over. why not pick Krejza, our so-called attacking spinner, along with Hauritz?
And they should have stuck with Hughes. Although Watson held his own, it smacked of panic and the latter’s poor footwork led to his downfall.
So many other little things going wrong – why doesn’t Ponting give Katich more of a bowl? etc – but all up there need to be more pitches that offer assistance to bowlers, swing, seam and spin.
Only then will we start to develop batsmen with great techniques, instead of flat track bullies.
As soon as the pitch does the slightest bit we look like we can’t bat at all.
El Capitan said | August 24th 2009 @ 11:13am | Report comment
I for one am glad that Australia lost the Ashes. Finally Test cricket has a competition on its hands. Those that remember the dark days of the late 70′s and early 80′s remember that Australia couldn’t win games, and batted with gusto and poise to get the results they could. This team needs to learn this. Ponting IMO, isn’t a good captain. He inherited a team of stars from Waugh (Warne, McGrath, Langer, Hayden, Gilchrist) and just had to give the ball to Mcgrah or Warne to get wickets, or know that Attacks would be beltered to all parts from Hayden, Langer, Gilchrist.
Decisions like the Cardiff test is not from a Captain with much thought, likewise the Tests last summer, where he “bought” a wicket by trying everyone to bowl. Sorry Ricky, your time as Captain has come to an end, but he should remain in the team as a batter, until such time as he can’t perform or looses interest.