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The recently concluded first Test between England and New Zealand at Lord’s was a bit like watching a fortune teller reveal Australia’s future in the Ashes.
A future that will see their excellent fast bowling poke and prod at England’s batting throughout, with them enjoying an occasional demolition job on it.
Only to have their smiles turned around by the equally competent and in fact more complete English attack demolishing the tourist’s abject batting at will.
Australian fans will be outraged by this with them viewing the current English team as being overrated in many regards and a shadow of the team that reached Test cricket’s pinnacle a few years back.
There is merit in this, but even if you were to concede it as a fact and downgrade England from the A-Grade side they were a few years ago to a solid B-Grade team now it still does not redeem Australia’s current Test standing.
Which, after an embarrassing whitewash against an average Indian team struggling in the midst of rebuilding, made you think they would find it tough against Minnows like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Let alone have a chance against an England team that revels in home conditions.
Here are a few more factors to cement my belief that Australia has no chance in the Ashes:
1. The lack of continuity
Think of any successful team in any sport and one thing will be consistent in regards to a continuity of personnel which imbibes a familiarity and understanding among the players allowing a consistency of performance
As we sit on the eve of the Ashes, the very make up of the team is a cause of constant discussion in particular the top six in the batting, where none of the positions are settled.
The farcical nature of this is seen in the fact that aside from Michael Clarke the only other batsman that seems assured of a place is the one-Test veteran Chris Rogers at the top of the order, after a five-year absence from the Test team. The rest including Clarke could bat anywhere in the top six.
Adding to this musical chairs type farce is that of the seven specialist batsmen chosen, six could be deemed as openers with very little experience in the middle order
This uncertainty very much fosters instability, and hardly does anything to support the team’s greatest weakness
2. Hope versus belief
When you run the rule over the teams going into the Ashes you come to the conclusion that Australia is a team clinging to hope, whereas England is a team sleeping soundly at night comforted by belief
On the Australian viewpoint every hope of success is about what might be, such as as their under performing batting finally finding its feet and being a factor, rather than an anchor around the team’s neck.
Or hope that a bowling line-up that is notoriously frail from an injury point of view with suddenly not only remain fit but will be decisive.
Little if any certainty surrounds the team’s personnel outside of Michael Clarke, which hardly inspires faith in Ashes success when you consider ‘hope’ is the domicile of the damned.
3. The conditions
As I watched the Indian debacle with an eye on the Ashes the first thing that entered my mind was that if Aussie fans think their batsmen are weak against spin, then they are much worse against the swinging ball.
If opposition teams are doing their homework, they will find one common theme. If you were coaching against Australia you would load up your team with bowlers who can bend it in the air, because our record recently against swing bowling is poor.
When the missile swings or if the wicket offers anything off the straight and narrow the Australians invariably crash.
“Every time the ball has swung or done something we’ve found ourselves in a little bit of trouble,” said coach Mickey Arthur recently.
When you take into account that English conditions will in a large way support swing but also facilitate the other form of Kryptonite for Aussie batsmen in spin, things do not look too good for them when you see them experiencing a high quality cocktail of both
4. That ‘evil’ Duke
The Aussies are banking on their pace corps to make the Ashes competitive with an outside chance of a miraculous win.
But history is not on their side with them struggling mightily with the Duke ball in their past two tours to England, where it stood out that they could not get it to go off the straight while the English bent it like Beckham.
Outside of Craig McDermott’s exceptional and all-too-brief tenure as bowling coach, education and learning from their mistakes has not been one of Australia’s fortitudes of late, meaning these struggles are likely to continue eliminating any chance Australia might have
5. The English can counter Australia’s main strength
It is a Captain Obvious statement that Australia’s best hope of Ashes success is their bowling being that decisive that it can cover the rest of the team’s weaknesses.
There is little doubt that Australia’s pace bowling is potentially exceptional but then so is England’s batting.
Not only does it have quality through its top six, but also depth with Matt Prior batting at seven with a three-year average of over 50 and the existence of a resilient and dangerous tail.
When looking at this decisive contest it is hard to see anything but a score draw where both will trade blows but eventually council each other out.
I say this for against a similar pace dominated South African attack of Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel, which for pedigree and all-round excellence is better than the current Aussie attack.
They rarely dismantled the English batting with their lowest score being 240 for the series and highest being 425.
The only time the English batsmen truly struggled in a series causing defeat was against a Pakistan attack that had excellent pace coupled with high quality and unorthodox spin.
Sadly for Australia they only have the big hearted Nathan Lyon as their spinner, a bowler who will rarely let you down but by the same token never commandeer a victory charge either.
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