Moments. Ultimately that’s all it will boil down to.
In an otherwise even contest between two strong but limited sides, whichever country grasps the critical, match-deciding moments will win this edition of sport’s greatest rivalry, The Ashes.
Pretty simple concept, right? Not exactly groundbreaking analysis.
But it’s significantly easier said than done, and it’s something Australia must do if it is to retain The Ashes, beginning with the first match at Edgbaston on Thursday.
Unlike cricket in Australian, where conditions often wear away the opposition until their ground into submission on hard, flat and generally unresponsive pitches, cricket in England is characterised by dramatic swings in momentum fuelled by changing weather and pitch conditions. Each day or even each session is punctuated by defining periods that can go a long way to deciding not just the battle at hand but the war overall.
Australia must learn from its previous losses of these moments.
(AAP Image/David Moir)
Rewind just four years, when the series was poised 2-1 going into the fourth Trent Bridge Test. Within the first 90 minutes the Ashes were over.
Stuart Broad’s 8-15 decimated Australia there, the visitors all out for 60 in only 18.3 overs. But the writing was already on the wall from the previous Test, where James Anderson’s spell of 4-19 on his way to six for the innings on the first morning had led England to an eight-wicket victory and a series lead.
While these instances clearly highlighted Australia’s vulnerability when conditions were in the bowler’s favour, many of Australia’s top order dominated the series.
Three of the top four run scorers for the series were on the Aussie side of the ledger, with Steve Smith leading the way with 508 runs at 56 and Chris Rogers 480 runs at 60.
Australians also occupied four of the top five spots in the most wickets for the series; however, critically, only Mitchell Starc managed to take a five-wicket haul compared to England’s four, each being the decisive factor in the determining the match’s outcome.
The series echoed 2009, when the Australians performed well but lost the most significant moments, losing the series 2-1.
Six Australians were in the seven highest run scorers across the series, scoring eight centuries compared to two from the English. Australia’s bowlers were also dominant, taking 84 wickets against 71 by the English.
Despite this control, the Aussies won only one of five Tests.
Crucially, they didn’t take their opportunities.
Cast your mind back to the first Test in Cardiff, when Australia was seemingly on track to go one-nil up before the last wicket partnership of Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar nicked, nudged and frustrated the visitors for almost 22 overs. They survived for an unlikely draw and crucially prevented England from falling behind in the series.
And again, in the final Test at The Oval just as Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey were forming a formidable partnership, Hussey’s push to a one-legged Andrew Flintoff, who rediscovered his athleticism for the first time all series for that single moment, threw the keeper’s stumps down, running out the Australian captain and thus extinguishing Australia’s last remaining hope.
And yet I still haven’t even mentioned Gary Pratt’s runout of Ponting or the ball faintly brushing Michael Kasprowicz’s glove at Edgbaston within three runs of victory back in 2005.
These singular moments changed the course of each series, and this series will be no different.
And as Australia’s openers walk out to face Jimmy Anderson with a new thickly lacquered Dukes ball under grey skies on a raging green seamer, can they win the moment, or will they be consigned to following recent history?
Jeff
Roar Rookie
The Kookaburras have been considered to be under performing for a few years and the Dukes were being used as a comparison but also in preparation for these Ashes.
Cari
Roar Rookie
It seems a bit shall I say unusual to play with two types of ball in a competition but what do I know about Australian domestic cricket.
Mika
Roar Rookie
NO WAY Marsh!!! I don't know why they picked him. Nesser has considerably better shield numbers with both ball AND bat this season...
Mika
Roar Rookie
Stokes has similar numbers to Flintoff. And similar big game impact. Real all rounders. If you don't have a real all rounder, don't try to find one. It's always been a dumb obsession with our selectors. Meanwhile we have a tail that is pretty bloody good with the bat. Until a Botham declares himself, just pick another gun bowler or batsman please...
Jero
Roar Rookie
Great article Tom. I’m with Simoc, we’re definitely underdogs. We always go there with solid teams, and the last four series have been like groundhog day. A wobble at the top isn’t arrested by our middle order, resulting in an avalanche. It only needs to happen two or three times and it’s over quickly. I back our bowlers to not let England start taking games away from us, and keep us in the game even with lowish scores. But as others have said, England’s middle order is strong whereas ours can be awfully brittle. I think our middle order holding up when it counts is the key. I think the selectors have to pick number 6 just as carefully as any of the five slots above, certainly for Edgbaston. I’d be very comfortable seeing Bancroft walk out after the fall of the fourth wicket, but can’t see it happening. Wade for me. If it’s Marnus, I’d back him in though. We have the batsmen with the grit to do this. I hope they have the technique too.
The Bush
Roar Guru
A final comment to reveal the difference as players - Flintoff, who admittedly played more games, scored more centuries and fifties than Watson, despite usually batting at 6 and never getting the opportunities like Watto up the order. This again shows that Flintoff was more likely to impact a game with a 50 or 100, while Watto was more likely to score a mediocre 30-odd batting at first drop - usually not what a team needs at all.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Yes I think that is a good comparison between Watson and Flintoff in terms of big game performance or at least turning matches with key performances when needed.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Hi Tom, there more I think about, the more I come around to Wade at six. There's no reason to think Wade won't perform the same as Labuschagne. An argument can be made for Labu given Div 2 performance, however - and whilst not yet had a close look yet at Wade's performance in Hobart (arguably close to English conditions) against Dukes in the back half of the season - I'd suggest the performances should be comparable. But Wade could very pile on runs quickly and could be the difference at key moments. Or to counter Roy who could come out and do the same, though I think on a much less regular basis. Just depends whether you want Labu's spin as well. I was thinking it would be superfluous to requirements if the wicket has some moisture and grass, however comments last night indicated it was rock hard? So then it would come down to Labu v Khawaja at 3. UK has the experience and Labu at 3 is a big call in the Ashes...
The Bush
Roar Guru
We can really only go on our experiences from the last few tours and based on those experiences it seems like we'll have low scoring games on green surfaces, as both sides have weak batting, and potentially larger scores on the drier surfaces as Warner, Smith and Khawaja have track records that suggest this is possible. So it seems like it'll come down to only a few factors: 1. How many green wickets will there be? 2. If the wickets are drier than last time, then Australia is in with a real chance; 3. If they're similar to last time, then it's more of a "who knows" - the toss becomes important, as does Anderson's fitness, but you'd say England are the favs.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Australia has been using the Dukes ball in the second half of the domestic comp for a couple of years now.
Tom Simon
Roar Pro
Thanks Jeff. I think with Pattinson in for probably Starc, you have got first gutsy selection. The next will be who bats at 6? The safe option is M.Marsh to cover Pattinson, the potentially match-winning one is Wade. I do hope they go for the second...
Tom Simon
Roar Pro
Agreed, I think Australia's bowling is superior. The fact Australia are likely to leave out someone of Mitchell Starc's quality - regardless of his recent form - speaks volumes of the talent Australia have to choose from. But I think this series will be decided by how each side fares with the willow. I expect low scoring, getting beyond 300 will just about be a winning score. Only Smith has scored a test hundred in England before, so we will learn a lot about this current Aussie crop regardless
The Bush
Roar Guru
It's why statistics always need context and sometime they unnecessarily flatter a player. There has been a growing nostalgia for Watto as his successors have continued to struggle over and over, but a look at his statistics on a year by year basis with the bat are extremely revealing. Overall Watto's test batting average was 35.19, which compares very, very favourably to, say, Marsh's. After a modest start back in 2005, Watto's career average peaked at 41.55 after the 2010-11 Ashes. However in his last five years of test cricket his batting averages were 24.09, 31.45, 35.21, 25.80 and 30.33. Although I'm not huge on doing this, it should be noted that in 2013 when he averaged 35.21, if you take out his 176 in the dead rubber Ashes test he only averaged 27.56 across his over 23 innings... Those five years also consisted of a bit more than half of all the test cricket he played. So that means for half a decade we had a guy that wanted to bat first drop and was VC for long stretches, and he averaged 30.50 across the period and only averaged 35 in one of those five years. The above doesn't even factor in the other problem Watto had and that was his penchant for scoring "meaningless" runs. I've already mentioned his HS in the dead rubber Ashes, but his only other century in that half a decade was also against England, though this time it was a second innings tonk in the third test at a point when the English had already been beaten into submission. All of this contrasts very interestingly with Flintoff. Statistically Flintoff doesn't seem like a world beater at all, far from it. He averaged 32.78 with the ball and 31.77 with the bat, so doesn't even meet the all rounder goal of a higher batting average than his bowling average (which Watto managed to "pull off"). But Flintoff had that knack for taking wickets and scoring runs that matter, in bit series against big opponents; 2005 and 2009 come to mind from an Australian perspective. The reality is that Watson never had that impact, he never really performed when it was needed.
The Bush
Roar Guru
The bowling is not even at all, we’re a much, much better bowling line up overall. The only thing that evens it up is that Anderson and Broad are particularly good on their home turf and our batsmen are particularly bad in those conditions. Broad’s career average is worse than all over the big three and he’s been their second best bowler for a decade. Outside of English green tops, you wouldn’t select a single English bowler ahead of any of our bowlers anywhere else (and they have no serious spin option to even consider).
Cari
Roar Rookie
Update of weather for Birmingham on Thursday-----light cloud, gentle wind, as yet no rain forecast.
Cari
Roar Rookie
Its not excessive swing that’s unplayable its late swing on a pitched up delivery that finds the edge of a straight bat. Excessive swing is difficult for the bowler to control plus it’s easy for the batsmen to leave. The thickly lacquered Dukes ball, I see you don’t like the ball that has been used for years in the country, no sweat we don’t care for the ball used in Australia but its a question of how well either ball is used that wins test matches.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
This is a great article, Tom. Your stats, which so often are viewed without context, are telling. In close-ish series, it isn't the overall aggregates of runs or wickets, or the averages of either, that determine many series. It's the key - pivotal - moments that win or lose these series. Call it "x-factor" perhaps in the modern parlance, but in the close series, there's always two or three moments that swing it one way or the other. I hope Australia in its selections and match-play, sandbags its knowns, but also has the bravado to roll the dice and seize the key moments through gutsy selections which lead to unexpected and match winning performances.
Simoc
Guest
I would think we are underdogs this time. The pressure is on England to win. Our strength is top order batting and theirs is in the middle order batting. Maybe the bowlers are about even. Great chance for an upset.