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Looking ahead to this year’s Ashes, the biggest positive for Australia to come out of this series against India may not be the barnstorming form of Steve Smith and David Warner.
The Australians clearly had been desperate for opener Chris Rogers to rediscover his touch, such is his immense value in English conditions.
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After the first Test in Adelaide there were justifiable concerns about Rogers’ returns for Australia. He had started the tour of the UAE with scores of 0 and 3 in the warm-up game against Pakistan A, before making 118 runs at 20 over his following three Tests.
Since then he has made five consecutive 50s, including a free-flowing 95 at the SCG yesterday as part of a 200-run opening partnership with Warner.
Renowned as a dour accumulator, Rogers has looked more fluent than during any other period of his career. His 331 runs over the past three Tests have come at the swift strike rate of 61.
Yesterday he played with a rare freedom from the beginning of his innings. After eight overs he had outpaced his belligerent partner Warner on 23 from just 26 balls, including four sweetly struck boundaries.
It is this timing which is the most noticeable change in Rogers’ play. In the UAE and at Adelaide he repeatedly threw himself into drives only for them to fail to reach the boundary. At the other end, Warner was barely following through yet sending the ball careening into the rope.
Warner and current skipper Smith will be major weapons in Australia’s campaign to retain the Ashes. But Rogers could prove every bit as important. The 37-year-old has more experience and greater achievements in English conditions than any other current Australian player.
He has scored more than 20 centuries during a long county career in which he has turned out for Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Middlesex, Northamptonshire and the MCC.
Over the 2013 and 2014 county seasons combined, Rogers churned out 2401 runs at 56 for Middlesex, including seven centuries.
His comfort in England was apparent during his comeback series on last year’s Ashes tour. Rogers was Australia’s most consistent batsman with 367 runs at 41 and ended as his side’s leading run-maker over the back-to-back Ashes.
In England, Rogers mastered the hosts’ quicks, who are famously potent with the Dukes ball on their home decks. Rogers made 271 runs at 91 when opposing James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Tim Bresnan in that series. His average was dragged down due to his struggles against England’s champion off-spinner Graeme Swann, who dismissed him six times while conceding just 79 runs to Rogers.
Not only has Rogers improved his play against spin since that series, making better use of the depth of the crease, but England do not even have a frontline spinner, let alone anyone close to being as effective as Swann.
Australia’s other main batsmen in that 2013 series – Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, Warner and Smith – had no such drama against Swann, collectively averaging 71 against him over the five Tests.
None of that quartet, however, were anywhere near as comfortable as Rogers was against England’s quicks. Broad tormented Clarke, Bresnan peppered Watson’s front pad, Anderson bothered Warner, and Smith laboured against both Broad and Bresnan.
Australia’s frequent batting collapses were the reason they lost that series. Anderson and Broad were at the heart of nearly every such calamity.
The impact of that English pair will decide the upcoming Ashes. If they make regular inroads with the new ball, as they did last time around and also in their recent routing of India, Australia will relinquish the urn.
Rogers has a proven ability to blunt that pair and protect from the new ball the likes of Smith, Clarke and Watson.
The Victorian may have missed out on his hundred yesterday but he will be content in the knowledge that his Ashes berth is now secured. His batting colleagues should be similarly relieved.