It’s less than two weeks out from the start of the Ashes, and without sounding overly confident – how can one be after losing seven out of the past nine Tests? – I daresay Australia are looking in decent shape.
The batting seems to be taking care of itself, save the number six position, for which nobody has definitively put their hand up.
It is, however, Australia’s laundry list of talented and steady fast bowlers that gives a fan confidence that we won’t see a repeat of the debacle three years ago.
That was the series in which even Boycott-esque accumulators such as Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott were made to look like Hayden and Ponting, piling on the runs for sessions at good pace.
By the end of the recent Ashes campaign in England, Australia had lost three of its six fast bowlers (Pattinson, Starc and Bird) to injury, so it’s not farfetched to doubt us keeping our three first choice seamers intact all summer.
Although Peter Siddle has remained injury free for quite some time, Ryan Harris and Mitchell Johnson – who I’m assuming will be picked to start in Brisbane – have been out of action regularly over the past couple of years.
Fear not. If we look to the extensive list of pacers waiting in the wings, and forget that injuries have ruled out around six who would’ve made that list, we can be reasonably confident that there will be no cannon fodder for the English this summer.
For if the perpetually wounded ‘Rhino’ has to sit out a couple of Tests, or Johnson isn’t what many well-wishers hope he’ll be this summer, Australia has three quality replacements – Ben Cutting, Ben Hilfenhaus and James Faulkner.
Either of these back-ups would walk into the Indian Test side as some sort of ‘once in a lifetime’, heaven sent fast bowling saviour.
(I am aware that this isn’t saying much, however, as the bloke opening the bowling in my Third XI club team would be a more menacing sight than the likes of the rake-thin Bhuvneshwar Kumar.)
The point is that these three are adequate replacements, more than capable of bowling in tandem with the current attack and doing an impressive job of curtailing England’s meaty yet monotonous batting line-up.
As the likes of James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Tim Bresnan have showed in the last two campaigns, three steady and intelligent bowlers who back each other up and stick to plans can be as effective as a couple of sub-25 averaging superstars.
That all three of those English quicks average over 30 with the ball, yet seem to get the job done again and again, should be a lesson to Australia this summer – hunt in packs and stick to the basics.
This is perhaps even more important for Australia, as we don’t have a spinner of Graeme Swann’s class.
And in the event that Pat Howard’s ‘High Performance’ program flops tremendously, and the three back-ups also perish to injury, the likes of Doug Bollinger, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chadd Sayers and Sam Rainbird could come in and trouble the Poms.
Which all points towards it being a far cry from the leather chasing summer of 2010-11.
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