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HENRY: Life's a Mitch right now for the English batsmen

9th December, 2013
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Australian bowler Mitchell Johnson. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
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9th December, 2013
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Test victories at Adelaide Oval are very often hard earned. The pitch has forever lacked a green flavour, drop in or live in: brown, browner and brownest being the favoured shades.

The weather is often hot rather than warm, the pitch bakes and cracks under the Central Australian sun, the dry air sapping its moisture, pace and bounce.

The pitch gods direct their delights toward the spinners but even then the tweakers must toil through many overs. Test matches rarely finish well inside the five-day deadline because batsmen have to lured, roped and dragged kicking and screaming from the middle.

This Test match was over just beyond the four-day mark.

The margin was significant, England were never in this once Brad Haddin joined Michael Clarke. 400 is just par for this course and the visitors have been finding runs harder to come by than a sober soldier in the Barmy Army.

This second Test win had a sniff of ‘too easy‘, not because the Australian bowlers didn’t have to work hard for their rewards but maybe because they didn’t have to work REALLY hard.

The number of wickets falling to short pitched thunderbolts at the ‘Gabba was understandable, just.

The Gabba will give a positive response to bowlers who bend their backs, Adelaide just answers back like a Gen Y asked to tidy their room. The Merri Creek earth can blunt pure force and the tactical subtleties generally play a bigger role.

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Mitchell Johnson’s 7fer was the match winning role in this contest despite him taking just the one in the second innings. 7-40 at Adelaide Oval is worth 14-20 anywhere else apart from perhaps Galle and Gaddafi.

He rightly got his second man of the match in a row.

7fers usually take about 35 overs to accrue in North Adelaide, Mitch took them in 17.2.

He got a lot from the short ball and then had Cook doing it in the second to get that crucial early breakthrough against the opposition leader.

Johnson is playing some inspired cricket at the moment. He is batting, bowling and fielding at the top of his game.

What a time to be at the apex.

The form guide has been torn up and turned into a papier-mâché model of Steve Harmison’s infamous opening delivery of the 2006-07 series.

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On two quite different surfaces 1700 kilometres apart, England have been woeful and Australia magnificent, which has been totally unexpected if not wholly welcomed in these parts.

Swann, nullified by the Brisbane wicket , was expected to shine at Adelaide – the lustre has gone and psychologically the Australians have wrenched themselves out of the pit of hesitation they showed against him the winter and now light up when he is thrown the ball.

I can only think Jimmy Anderson is carrying a considerable niggle or his magic fingers which had such a loving relationship with the Duke has had an irretrievable breakdown with the Kookaburra.

The moustachioedless vaudeville villain Stuart Broad needs some help in the trenches and his mates have gone walkabout.

At least Broad looks mentally up for the contest, his body language has been screaming expletives at the Australians but he hasn’t the pace of Johnson to back up the rhetoric with the deeds. That isn’t stopping him from revving the oral motor at 150 kph though.

Ben Stokes looks to have talent but to throw him in at No. 6 in a Test match looked premature, maybe a seven who bowls well?

The haggard veteran Prior, so essential to the grit and guts of the middle order and keeping the tempo upbeat and hostile, looks plain worn out.

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The defiance of the second innings built on reflex rather than will. The whole team look tired, downcast and therefore vulnerable, and that’s how they are playing.

Doug Bollinger and Nathan Coulter-Nile will not have their draft papers endorsed for Perth such has been the low workload of the fast men.

Finishing early on day five along with relatively short stints in the field for the first three innings of the series means the top three will be in good shape to rip and tear at the WACA.

Going on form those three should bring he Ashes home late next week.

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