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Well, it’s been a sorry few days in Melbourne for Australian fans – though for lovers of cricket in general, it’s been hard not to enjoy what England have served up in this Boxing Day Test. Since the drop of the coin on Sunday morning, anything and everything has gone right for Andrew Strauss.
Right call, right replacement bowler, right use of the conditions, and right response with the bat. All just on the first day.
Come the second day, it was Brisbane and/or Adelaide revisited as the English top order just batted and batted and batted. A lead of 346 at the end of the second day is a pretty handy couple of days of cricket.
On the third morning though, the Australians jumped out of the blocks first. Peter Siddle removed Matt Prior, the man spared by video review of ‘that no-ball’ from Mitch Johnson, in the sixth over of the day, some 80 runs after what turned out to be an expensive moment for Ricky Ponting.
Prior’s dismissal triggered something of a collapse, and despite some enterprise from Graeme Swann, England lost 5/54 to be all out 513. Jonathan Trott would finish 168 not out and now runs with an Alistair Cook-esque series average.
But in the scheme of things, this was just a mere hiccup.
Australia would need a mammoth 416 just to make England bat again, and after 98 all out midway through Boxing Day, that would seem a long way away.
Shane Watson and Phillip Hughes started in ominous fashion, and were still ticking along at better than five-an-over into the eleventh. “At this rate, they should lead by 350 tomorrow night,” my well-meaning but somewhat optimistic colleague, Vinay Verma, uttered at the time.
If only. If this Test is even close to still going at stumps tonight, I will be both shocked and stunned. As would England, I’d wager.
However, the columnist’s curse proved than it can also work at the subconscious level, for just as I was thinking that Hughes was looking more stable and solid than at any other point in his return innings – and even daring not to speak this observation aloud – he was needlessly run out by yet another shocking Shane Watson call.
Later in the post-match, Watson would admit, even if only begrudgingly so, that Hughes’ run out “probably was my fault, yeah” – and his calling is surely getting to the point of becoming an issue for the side.
Just as Simon Katich did in Adelaide, Hughes found himself called through by Watson after both batsmen had stuttered their run, and was eventually out of his ground by some distance. England ‘keeper Prior undoubtedly contributed to the distance of the run out by cleverly taking the ball in front of the stumps, but nevertheless, there was always doubt about the run.
And whenever that is the case, Hughes simply must learn to say ‘no’, regardless of how senior or on whatever score his partner is.
Watson further added to an already frustrating time for the Australian faithful in the super-impressive third day crowd by getting out in the fifties yet again, this time thrusting only a pad forward to a middle-stump-bound Tim Bresnan in-swinger.
Sadly, that wasn’t the last piece of poor judgement in this dismissal; for reasons I can neither fathom nor even guess, Watson referred the decision upstairs for a second opinion. Once discovered that Bresnan had neither no-balled nor miraculously morphed into a left-armer, Watson was again the subject of a skyward finger.
It quickly emerged in various circles that Watson’s fifties-to-centuries conversion is now at a touch over 11 per cent, which is generally handy for a batting all-rounder, but perhaps not so much when said batting all-rounder features at the top of the order.
Bresnan had his wind up by this stage, and after a determined period from the Australian captain, the Yorkshireman enticed Ponting to spar outside off to a ball Bresnan later described as “nothing special,” only to see a massive inside edge redirect it stumpwards.
Ponting was a dejected man as he trudged off the MCG, and people in these parts would be right to ask if we’ve seen the last of the best batsman of this generation on this hallowed ground. I quite seriously wonder if we’ll now see an announcement made in these next few days prior to Sydney.
Mike Hussey proved he is human again by sending an ambitious drive to Ian Bell in the covers, and with him gone, the Barmy Army lifted in perfect relativity to the deflating Australian fans.
At this time, I suggested to my modest Twitter crowd, “If Clarke has any aspirations for the top job, and likewise Smith as a Test No.6, they simply both MUST last to stumps. Just must.”
Sadly, neither could, and with them gone, so are all of Australia’s faint hopes of avoiding a second innings-defeat in this Ashes series.
Just as Mike Gatting’s team did in 1986, Andrew Strauss’ men will now also secure the Ashes in Melbourne. While Gatting’s lot did it inside three days, only a miracle will prevent Strauss’ team doing it well inside four.
And fair play to them.
After the small stumble in Perth, England’s sheer dominance in this series has once again returned to the fore. Simply put, they have been the better team in almost all the key moments in this series.
For Australia, the post-mortems will begin well before the body is pronounced dead. The obituaries may not even wait for Sydney.