Boxing Day Test brings all the big questions

 
Brett McKay Columnist

By , 26 Dec 2010 Brett McKay is a Roar Expert

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Australian Peter Siddle bowls durng a training session in Melbourne, Dec. 25, 2010. Australia plays England in the traditional Boxing Day Test in the battle for the Ashes.

Australian Peter Siddle bowls durng a training session in Melbourne, Dec. 25, 2010. Australia plays England in the traditional Boxing Day Test in the battle for the Ashes. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Pop quiz: Your team wins a crucial match that might later be viewed as the turning point in your season, and did so on one of the fastest and bounciest tracks on the planet with four quicks.

Your team’s next match is on a pitch not so much known for favouring for the fast men, but at the same time, they’ve taken roughly four of every five wickets there this season.

Do you keep your four-string pace quartet, or do you bring in a spinner that all anyone knows about him is how to fit his name in a mildly amusing headline?

So then, if you have kept the four quicks, does the previously-little-known spinner from the west come back into calculations for Sydney, or do you jettison him back to obscurity and pick some blokes with better figures and/or longer-term viability about them, like say, a couple of locals who are in decent nick with both ball and bat?

Or, if you have given Michael Beer the ultimate Christmas present this morning, Baggy Green number 418, do you drop Ben Hilfenhaus, a man so economical in Perth that Toyota want to name their next hybrid after him, or do you deprive hometown hero Peter Siddle the opportunity that every Victorian boy desires?

Yeah, I don’t know either.

But we will find out soon enough, as the rejuvenated Australian team go into the biggest Test match on the local calendar intent on making the most of their new found momentum and looking to go 2-1 up in the Ashes Series.

The Perth Test rocked the series back to life after an ordinary few days in Brisbane and a shocking week in Adelaide. Just when we thought that Australian cricket might have reached rock bottom, Mitchell Johnson found his inswinger, Mike Hussey knocked up his squillionth run for the series, and Ryan Harris got the best possible return from his “old man’s” knee.

What’s more, England now looks like Australia did ten days ago.

So here we are in Melbourne, and it’s these key questions on everyone’s lips.

Personally speaking, I’d be hoping MCG curator Cameron Hodgkins made good use of the abundant water in south-eastern parts of the country and that the Test wicket resembled an Asian rice paddy at some point in its preparation.

I’m hoping that the only assistance Graeme Swan gets in Melbourne this week is from the doorman of the England team’s hotel.

What really surprised me over in Perth was just how well the four quicks worked in partnership, and how they were all able to benefit from shorter sharper spells. Once they got their sails up, there was no real “down” periods in the Australian attack as the bowlers rotated effectively through the crease.

So in a case of “when you’re onto a good thing, stick to it”, I’d be leaning toward keeping the four quicks in the side, giving Mitchell Johnson all the hugs he needs to know he’s still loved, and looking to exploit the sudden doubt that gripped the England side over the last two-and-a-bit days in Perth.

They claimed before the series that they had Mitchell Johnson’s measure, and that certainly looked to be the case in Brisbane. Heck, I would’ve fancied my chances against Johnson in Brisbane.

However, all the meetings, think-tanks and expensive Mitch-mimicking bowling machines in the world couldn’t have counted on his inswinger coming back with such a bang as it did in Perth. Kevin “Smart Arse” Pietersen admitted as much this week when he suggested, “We knew he could swing it but we didn’t realise he could swing it that much.”

Neither did the Bowl-a-tron 5000, I’m tipping.

Sadly, the pitch doctors might have scuppered my four-pronged pace plans though, with Hodgkins admitting mid-week that “the WACA’s worst day would still be faster and bouncier than anything we normally turn out.”

With all this leaning toward Beer on Boxing Day – as if that wasn’t going to happen one way or the other – the tall Sandgroper faces a daunting Test debut on what Stuart Clark rightly describes as “the Australian cricket equivalent of a golfer lining up his first tee shot at Augusta.” No wonder it’s called ‘Test’ cricket.

Of course, the other big talking point in Melbourne today is the captain’s little finger. Ricky Ponting trained with no reported effects on Friday, and he’s declared himself a certain starter for this Test.

That said, if his runs drought continues, the critics and haters will no doubt point to the injury as a reason for him to have sat the game out. Actually, on second thought, they probably wouldn’t need the injury as reason for omission.

Michael Clarke and Phillip Hughes both need big runs too, and a lengthy testing period in Melbourne fighting their way to a score is just what the team requires of them.

Likewise for England, questions remain over the form of Paul Collingwood and Steve Finn, the fitness of Jimmy Anderson, and indeed, how well they recover for the dramatic reversal of fortunes in Perth.

Either way, the Boxing Day Ashes Test shapes as one of the most exciting contests in recent memory. Win here, and either team gets a major momentum boost for Sydney, and one hand back on the Urn.

The series doesn’t get any more in the balance than it is this morning.

Follow Brett McKay on Twitter: @BMcSport
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