It’s a special sort of torture trying to enjoy humiliating someone you’ve already lost to.
Which one is the aberration? Was it the Cardiff, Edgbaston and Trent Bridge performances or the Lord’s and The Oval performances that show the real Australian cricket team?
With such atrocious performances in the last two Tests, what self-respecting clairvoyant would have predicted the role reversal we have witnessed over the first two days of the fifth Test. Maybe it’s just a dead rubber.
The question is, is this five minutes of sunshine in a cyclone or were the last two Tests a storm in a paradise?
If it’s only five minutes of sunshine then Aussie cricket fans have every right to feel let down, frustrated and even angry at what might have been. Fans invest a lot of emotional well being and many late nights and early mornings willing their team along.
The diehard fan stayed until stumps every morning hoping for the turn around they know their team is capable of only to be repeatedly disappointed. They know their team won’t win every encounter but at the very least they expect their team to be competitive.
One shakes one’s head in dismay when reflecting on what could have been. The performance over the last two days makes it even harder to bear. Why didn’t they perform close to that in the last two Tests? The Aussie fan grits his teeth and grunts out ‘they’re capable of so much more so how could they have surrendered the Ashes so meekly’.
One of the worse aspects is that we made the English team look so superior when they are not. They are essentially the team that was humiliated out of the World Cup just months ago. They are the team that lost to us in a 5-0 whitewash at home. This is not the team of reborn superheroes that they now seem to be.
How good are the English bowlers? The truthful answer is we don’t know. The last two Tests are not a pointer to the answer. They didn’t earn their wickets, the Aussies surrendered them. And yet Stuart Broad will live in English history as having single-handedly brought the urn back to England in one session of cricket.
This is the same ‘sportsman’ that refused to walk when he was clearly out at a previous encounter at Trent Bridge, denying the Australians a much needed win at that time.
After all the analysis of whether there was enough time spent acclimatising prior to the first Test, or how the toss of a coin, doctored pitches and swing bowling influenced proceedings is done and dusted, nothing will erase the loss of the Ashes urn. It was such an uncompetitive, meek and un-Australian performance and they shamed the memories of cricketers gone past.
So when you look back at the team and say ‘not good enough’, how much blame is shared by the selectors?
Paul Schlanger
Roar Rookie
Oh JohnB, you have a great memory. Don't you hate it. I didn't realize that I had forgotten so much. Perhaps time will be kind and help me forget this series as well.
JohnB
Guest
I've been trying to think which was the most disappointing Ashes tour in my time watching the game - 72, where the doctored Headingley pitch put England in a position from which they couldn't lose? 77 when most of the Australian team were only thinking about WSC and lost to a far from great opponent? 81 when an aging but still good Australian team lost to a series of individual performances so good the English still talk about them (incessantly)? 85 when an Australian team weakened by rebel tours flattered to deceive at the start, then got steamrolled? Perhaps because at that time it was obviously far from uncommon for Australia to lose in England there wasn't the same assumption of superiority or the same longing for what there had previously been that are arguably necessary to really make for a long-running disappointment. In the case of some of those series, I also probably didn't really know what I was looking at at the time, which helps also. Then we had that long happy period from 1989 to 2001, creating standards and expectations. And then 4 successive losses in 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2015. 2005 was pretty bad - McGrath injuring himself, Gillespie hitting the wall, angst over substitute fielders, all the left handers getting found out - and for all that they were still within a dubious decision against Kasprowicz and Warne dropping Pietersen from retaining the Ashes (possibly). 2009 - Panesar - Panesar!! - ends up winning the Ashes by staying in. Never mind, we flipping murdered them, in the words of a former England coach and current commentator. Just look at the number of hundreds we got. We'll be right. Then - hang on - we get smashed at Lords. What's going on here? Normal service resumes though, and all we need to do is draw at the Oval. Of course there's no need for a spinner there. We really shouldn't have lost there, but I can't decide which of 2005 and 2009 was more disappointing. Close to each other. At least in 2013 we were a shambles going in and England made no bones about doctoring the pitches to suit. We may not be happy about it and certainly not happy about losing one game to a spell from the not overly likable Stuart Broad, but we can hardly say the better team didn't win. And then this series. The fact that the Australians were obviously perfectly capable of batting and bowling well enough to win, and that they were playing a team with one and a bit batsmen and a handy no 8 who lost one of their best 2 bowlers while the series was still alive, went in playing well having selected their team focussing only on this series - and still lost - takes this series to the top for mine.
Paul Schlanger
Roar Rookie
Mike, a captain of years ago would not have taken that option, he would have assessed the pitch for what it was and saw that he could have extracted early life out of the pitch. Unwittingly, that's what England did. I agree with you, it was the turning point from which there was no return when the Aussies were 2-1 down.
Mike from Tari
Guest
You have to wonder how the Ashes series would have turned out if Clarke had sent England into bat first in the 3rd Test, that decision to me was the turning point for the series.
Maggie
Guest
"So when you look back at the team and say ‘not good enough’, how much blame is shared by the selectors?" And how much blame should be taken by the coach?