England defeated Australia in the fifth Test and won the series 2-1. Australia’s inability to finish England off in the first Test at Cardiff proved to be a pivotal moment in the series.
Instead of playing from in front, Australia was forced to play catch up after a second Test loss.
England won the series on the back of some quality performances from a few individuals. This was needed cause they carried their very weak middle order throughout the series.
To highlight how weak their middle order was, number 8 batsman Stuart Broad (29.25) and number 9 Graeme Swann (35.57) averaged higher than number 3 Ravi Bopara (15.00), number 4 Ian Bell (28.00), number 5 Paul Collingwood (27.77) and opener Alistair Cook (24.66).
England’s batting was poor, but when they won, they got big performances out of skipper Strauss (162) at Lords and adequate contributions from most at the Oval.
They were also saved by Collingwood, who played his one decent innings for the summer, and the tail in the hard fought first Test draw.
England’s bowling was adequate without being that good.
Broad was hopeless until the final Test. Even his six for in the fourth Test was nothing special. His 5-37, however, at the Oval was the most crucial spell of bowling in the series.
It was the session and spell of bowling that broke Australia’s back. Australia was never really going to win the Test trailing by 197 runs on the first innings.
For Australia, the batting wasn’t too bad, with the exception of Mike Hussey and Phil Hughes, who were both poor. Hussey’s late century in the greater scheme of things did nothing but perhaps saved his Test career just in time for the “improve your averages” summer coming up against the Windies and Pakistan.
I would have given Hughes one more shot in the third Test, but he was all over the shop in the first two Tests.
It’s the first time I’ve seen the bloke bat and he looks like he needs a few more years playing State cricket to me and fix up his technique. He doesn’t need to change it as such but having your front foot go to mid wicket on a good length ball just didn’t look like a long term Test opener.
He has enough ability to be a long term test player, however.
The bowling wasn’t where it needed to be.
Hilfenhouse was good without having the Terry Alderman penetration to ever really go through England’s batting. Siddle bowls too much rubbish for mine. Johnson was a waste of time for the first two Tests before getting it right by Test four.
But then he seemed to really lack something extra by the final Test.
Hauritz was good and did a decent job. He should have played on the dust bowl Oval wicket.
Stuart Clark would have been a better choice that Siddle at the start. he bowled well in the first innings at Headingly before fading to only take one more wicket for the rest of the series.
The four selectors need a good kick up the back side, all of them, especially Merv and hook-a-thon Hildich.
The balance of the fifth Test bowling line up was ridiculous.
Also, Hildich’s comment that “it looked like a road so we thought we would take four seamers in” should be his final comment as a selector.
If it looks like a road, all the more reason to take in a spinner!
Also, the selection of stop gap measure Shane Watson at opener was embarrassing. I can’t recall ever seeing a stop gap measure this ridiculous.
He made five scores between 34 and 63, which suggests one thing, he is not an opener.
A proper opener would have kicked on and turned a couple of these scores into big centuries. This bloke just found a way to get himself stuck on the crease and LBW all the time.
He may survive for the summer, which will do more long-term harm than good to Australian cricket.
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