- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Australia entered this Lord’s Test match in a sticky mess. Thrashed at Cardiff they then endured concerns about the fitness of Mitchell Starc and upheaval as veterans Shane Watson and Brad Haddin were ruled out for different reasons.
Heaped on top of this were on-field concerns stemming from impatience among their batsmen and lack of control in their bowling.
They seemed weighed down by a host of issues, while their Ashes foes were being propelled by that invaluable intangible – momentum.
It’s taken just two days for the Australians to flip the series on its neck and inflict upon England the kind of carnage which lives long in the mind.
As I wrote last week, the first Test for England was all about trying to make the Australians feel like their feeble 2013 selves rather than the conquerors of 2013-14.
The home side succeeded in doing just this, or so it seemed at the time. That Australian side of 2013 had its moments, but never played with the confidence and vigour witnessed the past two days.
In scything through England last night, Australia awoke a Lord’s pitch which we’d been told was so flat it would produce a draw in a timeless Test.
Some English pundits dedicated entire articles to its supposedly unsporting nature after Day 1.
Many fans had by that point already declared the Test a draw. Others denigrated the commanding efforts of Steve Smith and Chris Rogers, indicating that they had been less responsible for their scores than had the pitch.
Then Australia declared and Starc and Josh Hazlewood took the new ball. Australia had been only one wicket down almost 600 deliveries into their innings. England were there after two balls.
Rookie opener Adam Lyth chased a length offering from Starc, handing debutant Peter Nevill his first catch and continuing a worrying trend of caught behind dismissals for the Englishman.
That brought to the crease Gary Ballance, who was similarly struggling to deal with the quality of Test pace bowling. Ballance made his way to 23, despite looking likely to be knocked over every time the ball was pitched up.
So it was then Mitchell Johnson swerved one past Ballance’s groping blade and into the stumps.
No sooner had Ian Bell strode to the crease, he was slinking back to the change-rooms, having been castled by a phenomenal outswinger from Hazlewood.
If that wicket left England in shock then they were king hit by the dismissal the next over of their lynchpin Joe Root.
England’s number five edged behind while trying to play a forcing shot to a ball which rose sharply on him and proved how exaggerated claims about the pitch had been.
The key difference between the Australian and English bowling had been pace. Starc and Johnson didn’t need assistance from the pitch because they both operated at an average speed of 144kmh in their opening spells, pushing the speed gun up to 150kmh and 149kmh respectively.
Australia’s Josh Hazlewood celebrates taking the wicket of England’s Ian Bell. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
When swing is gained at such pace the state of the pitch matters not. An overlooked aspect of England’s bowling in the first innings was their lack of velocity.
Anderson and Broad rarely trouble batsmen with their pace these days but even Mark Wood, the main hailed as England’s answer to Johnson and Starc, looked pedestrian.
Wood’s body has proved fragile in his first-class career, so much so that some English pundits questioned ahead of the second Test against New Zealand whether he should be rested, just one game into his Test career.
Their concerns proved to have some foundation as he laboured through the second Test, his average speed having plummeted from 142kmh in the first Test to 136kmh.
Without that unsettling speed, Wood largely was played with comfort by the Kiwis. The same story has played out in this Test.
England need Wood’s extra pace to give them variety and bite in their attack but he does not look strong enough or durable enough to offer them that in back-to-back Tests.
In the first innings at Cardiff, Wood averaged 139kmh, topped out at 150kmh and added value to the England attack.
In the first innings here, Wood averaged just 134kmh with his fastest delivery at 144kmh. It wasn’t through lack of effort – the young man patently was straining ever muscle in his chassis to locate that extra 5kmh of pace which had deserted him.
With England’s quicks operating mainly in the 130-135kmh bracket, Australia cruised to a mammoth total, rarely looking threatened by anyone bar Stuart Broad, who made the most of his height and employed clever cutters.
The home attack was toothless and lack of pace was the main reason for this. The other problem was the sameness that comes from having a bowling unit entirely made up of right armers.
Scoreboard pressure tends to play a role whenever teams bat in the face of a mammoth first innings total.
Yet it was impossible to ignore the fact that Australia’s attack, even without their longtime leader Ryan Harris, was just more dynamic, more diverse and, ultimately, far more destructive.
Of course, there remain three days to play in this Test and Australia have a power of work left to do to level the series.
England could yet change the course of the match and leave Australia’s bowlers groveling for wickets just as they had done on days two and three.
That is the joyful unpredictability of Test cricket. It’s hard not to think, though, that the heavy blows landed by Australia thus far have put them back into favouritism to retain the Ashes.