- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The Urn may be gone but the series is still to be decided, as the final Ashes Test gets underway at the hallowed Sydney Cricket Ground today. England will need to jolt themselves out of their Melbourne hangovers, but for them there will be no greater motivation than history itself.
Back in 1986/87, Mike Gatting also led his men to Ashes victory in the Fourth Test in Melbourne, but promptly allowed Australia to save some face by losing the Fifth Test in Sydney.
Andrew Strauss has already spoken of not wanting to hold the Ashes by virtue of a drawn series, but by actually winning them.
A loss in this last Test, for England, is simply unacceptable. What’s more, a 2-2 series result would completely flatter Australia while at the same time robbing the history books of a true measure on who the dominant team has been in the 2010/11 Ashes series.
Of their playing group, questions really only remain over the form of Paul Collingwood, who has had a quiet series with the bat when compared to his well-tallied colleagues, and likewise, the less than expected return of spinner Graeme Swann.
The Barmy Army have been singing all summer “Swann, Swann will tear you apart…”, but it hasn’t quite gone that way. He’s certainly played his part, no question, and the innings wins in Adelaide and Melbourne were certainly secured due to Swann’s efforts on the final mornings.
However, the truth is Swann hasn’t had to tear Australia apart because the English quicks – or indeed, the Australian bats themselves – have largely done the job before Swann got a chance.
Regardless, we’ve still seen enough of Swann to know that he is going to be a handful here in Sydney, especially as the Test goes on and the pitch starts wearing. If Australia plays Mitch Johnson AND Dougie Bollinger, Swann could become a very daunting prospect aiming into their footmarks as the Test goes on.
So while England will almost certainly go into Sydney unchanged, Australia will be making changes for the third time in four Tests. While this time around at least the changes are both injury-forced, it still highlights the gulf between the two sides in terms of selection stability.
Usman Khawaja has come into the side for Ricky Ponting, which will make many a Roarer happy, even if the promotion has an air of temporariness about it. Injury to the captain aside, Khawaja’s promotion has another refreshing element to it, in that it’s a just reward for performances over a prolonged period. As the cliché dictates, he has the runs on the board.
And in another move that will keep a good percentage of The Roar happy, the Test team for the final Ashes encounter takes on even more of a blue tinge, with seven New South Wales players in the XII, and all but Mike Hussey in the top seven.
While these local players will obviously be keen to do well regardless of where they play, the fact that this Test will be played in front of friends and family at their home ground adds just that little bit of extra pressure.
Shane Watson, admittedly a Bluebagger by lifestyle choice rather than birth or recruitment, is yet again one of Australia’s best performers this summer, but will do well to be slightly more circumspect when it comes to his run calling. His suicidal calling disposed of Simon Katich in Adelaide, and Phillip Hughes in Melbourne, and in Katich’s case the early and unnecessary wicket was the first of several in a top-order collapse.
If there’s hesitation at the other end, Shane, just say ‘no’. Please.
Hughes himself needs a big score in this Test to remind all and sundry that he can cut it at this level. Just as he looked set in both innings in Melbourne, he picked out Kevin Pietersen in the gully in the first innings, and was left stranded by Watson in the second.
The second innings was probably the more painful of the two MCG dismissals, as he’d looked more stable and less “hoppy” than in any previous innings in the series.
The same can be said for Steven Smith. He showed a lot of promise amidst a touch of the unorthodox in the second dig in Melbourne, and while there’s probably merit in him swapping places with Brad Haddin in the batting order for the next few Tests, he is certainly a player worth persevering with for the immediate future.
Khawaja, of course, has an opportunity to show his wares on the biggest stage, a glimpse to the post-Ponting future whenever that may be. I’m looking forward to observing his technique for I’ve not seen a whole lot of him so far. What I’ve heard and read excites me though, and I’ll be happy to see it for myself this week.
The most pressure though, is on the stand-in Captain. With Ponting out for the next month at least, Michael Clarke takes to the top job with a public opinion even less than NSW Premier Kristina Keneally held when she first rose (or was dragged) to power.
Personally, I don’t get this rush to condemn Clarke as a Test Captain before he even takes the field. His few stints as captain of the one-day side have shown him to be an innovative captain with a decent read on the game, and of course, he took the Twenty20 side to the World T20 Final despite being seemingly ill suited to that format of the game himself.
But apparently we don’t rate him, or so 85% of Daily Telegraph readers tell us.
It seems we want our Australian Captains to be devotees of VB or XXXX, instead of Bacardi Breezers. Never mind that this overlooks that Stephen Waugh was a Southern Comfort man who didn’t care much for beer, that Clarke bloke just isn’t one of us.
Phooey. How about we hold off on the judgements until after 10:30 this morning when at least he will actually have had a chance to prove his worth.
And who knows? He might even do a good job.