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Of course it’s been coming, the opening salvoes will be fired in under a month’s time, but the rhetoric from the Australian camp already looks like clutching at straws.
Mickey Arthur’s claim of the the Australians having the best bowling attack in the world is based on nothing more than the fact he sees them all the time.
Every coach and player talks up their charges/colleagues, that’s just the nature of sport at all levels, but it carries more weight if it is actually based on some sort of fact.
This isn’t.
Better judges than me have stated the Australians’ strength is in their bowling and, judging by the efforts of their top order in recent outings, that isn’t wide of the mark. But all Arthur is doing is offering up some provocation to his opponents and setting himself up for a big fall.
They certainly stack up reasonably well against their English counterparts and those in the home camp will be well aware of this, however, there are serious question marks hanging over the visiting attack.
The first of these has to be their respective fitness records.
James Pattinson, the pick of the bunch if he’s firing, has had injury issues, as had Ryan Harris, who must be a dab hand at filling in insurance claim forms.
Mitchell Starc has the advantage of his left-arm delivery but is yet to pull up trees at the top level and Nathan Lyon is dependable but won’t win games off his own back.
Jackson Bird looks like he could be a good find from the handful of appearances he has made but James Faulkner is an unknown quantity.
That leaves Peter Siddle, who is a tried and trusted performer and could make a case for inclusion in most sides on the circuit.
But the best in the world? Hardly.
And when you factor in the English conditions, which the home attack will always fancy their chances in, the argument looks even weaker.
This won’t be the first statement made that fans the flames and there will be plenty of nonsense uttered as the Trent Bridge encounter draws closer by both sides as the hype escalates.
‘We’re stronger at home’, ‘We like being the underdogs’, ‘We’ve got the momentum’, ‘We can handle the pressure’ etc etc etc.
It’s all space filling and, in the main, won’t count for anything and Arthur should be smart enough to realise this.
So he would be better advised to keep his counsel and concentrate on getting his side in some sort of shape for what’s to come.
Shooting from the hip is all well and good but it loses effectiveness when you don’t have the ammunition.