On watching Australia suffer an embarrassing defeat in the first Ashes Test, it made me question whether it was an aberration or to be the reality for the rest of the series.
If one looks at past results, with Australia failing in every series in England after 2001 and with their win/loss reading 2/8, the latter reasoning is undeniable.
With Australia still struggling to adapt to England conditions, it appears the result in the first Test may be the norm.
The key is the evaporation of Australia’s greatest strength – their bowling unit. The loss of Ryan Harris prior to the series has inflicted a major fracture in the bowling line-up.
Harris’ injury robbed the bowling unit of its leader as well as an expert in both defensive and attacking bowling styles, giving perfect balance to the attack. Without him, the attack has taken on a distinctly one-dimensional, crash or burn persona lacking know how in English conditions.
A situation made worse by captain Michael Clarke’s bizarre underuse of Shane Watson, with the all-rounder only bowling 13 overs. This is despite him having an English record of 13 wickets at an average of 30.15 and economy rate of 2.87.
Without the bowling assuming its dominance of recent times, it has taken away the protection it affords the batting.
Discretion and patience are concepts foreign to most of the Aussie batting line up, outside of the dour Chris Rogers and slumbering giant Michael Clarke.
The rest have attacking styles perfectly suited to Australia where the ball comes onto the bat in true and trusted fashion.
The poster child of these struggles is Dave Warner, whose English average from eight innings is a paltry 25.87, with his strike rate of 58.86 portraying the shadow of the scything attacking weapon that gives bowlers cold sweats.
This places greater weight on Steven Smith’s shoulders, shoulders that have carried the Aussie batting for 18 months now. His relative failures in the first Test dictated a need for the rest of the top seven to lift, only to see them fail miserably.
If he does not lift, or the rest of the batting continues to fail to pull their weight, further humiliation for Australia is certain.
Focus needs to be on restoring the team’s strength in its bowling. Key in this will be restoring balance in an attack that had attacking venom but was undermined by leaking too many runs.
Mitchell Starc’s troublesome ankle is likely to see him sit out the second Lord’s Test. Peter Siddle needs to replace him, a bowler who might not offer the same pure striking ability as Starc, but provides some needed control, leadership and experience.
If he can act like the defensive workhorse, it will accentuate the attacking threat of Mitchell Johnson and Josh Hazlewood.
The potential Siddle offers would facilitate ending Shane Watson’s Test career and inserting Mitch Marsh in the all-rounder’s role.
Whichever way they go, let’s hope the 11 wearing the coveted baggy green on Thursday hit back hard.
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