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Australia’s ruthless streak continued at the MCG. They are a settled, relaxed and committed side, which is in direct contrast to England who are indecisive, robotic and shellshocked. England are as bad as Australia have been good.
It has become increasingly clear that England were not expecting the levels of aggression and ill-feeling from their opponents, the Australian media and the public.
The departure of Jonathan Trott after the first Test should not be underestimated in terms of what effect it had on his teammates.
Here was the rock of the side with his dependability through consistent performance, professionalism and work ethic.
Couple this with Graeme Swann’s decision to finish up mid-tour and all of a sudden England lose over 100 Test matches worth of experience. This is very difficult to replace straight away.
Monty Panesar will not play for England much longer – Cook’s use of him (or lack thereof) on Day 4 clearly shows England are not convinced by him.
He may well play in Sydney partnering Scott Borthwick in the spin department but that’s about it as far as his Test career is concerned.
In Trott’s absence Joe Root has been batting at three and while he has shown signs, he has yet to nail down the spot.
I feel for Joe, he has been moved up and down the batting order in his Test career like a yo-yo. In my opinion Bell should have batted at three in that line-up.
The Sydney Test coming up will have England with another batting order and possibly another move for Joe Root back to the top in place of Michael Carberry, Bell at three and Gary Ballance at five.
With all the problems England face, Australia just chug along with a minimum of fuss on the back of good selections, clear plans, implementation of these plans and most importantly, support of players from the selectors and coaching staff.
For me, Australia only has to decide if Shane Watson can get through five days – if they feel he can, he plays.
There will be a discussion about resting Ryan Harris to look after his knee but I will tell you now – the only reason Harris may not play is if the selectors feel they need another slow bowling option.
But I can’t see Australia changing the side unless the wicket has no grass in Sydney. Knowing Ryan as I do, he will be dead against resting and will want to be part of a side that could very well win an Ashes series in a whitewash.
And finally, Swann’s decision was interesting. Let me say from the outset that if he felt the time was right then he made the correct call.
However, I can totally understand why people would interpret it as deserting the team and selfish.
I do not believe for one minute that Graeme was a selfish cricketer however to say it would be selfish to carry on when the elbow is not right and has not been for a while was not the right way to sell the decision to retire.
One will argue (and I have had plenty of people say it to me!) that if the elbow had not been feeling right, wasn’t it selfish to tour in the first place?
We may never know yet my personal feeling is that he wanted to finish with a series win in Australia and bow out of international cricket gracefully.
I have a sneaking suspicion that a certain T20 competition on the sub-continent beckons!