If that 15-foot putt on the 18th at Whittlebury Park a few years ago had dropped it would have been the first sub-par round of my life.
If this fullback’s conversion from wide(ish) on the right had gone over Sponne School would’ve won the Year 9 County Schools Rugby Cup in the early 1990s.
If Lancashire’s no.6 hadn’t gone too far across his crease in a National League fixture in Northampton in 2004 he wouldn’t have been bowled round his legs second ball by his brother.
If Steve Smith hadn’t been playing, England would’ve walked all over Australia.
There you have the scenarios, now you can have the respective outcomes which won’t come as much of a surprise.
Australia retained the Ashes (Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
It didn’t as a tentative effort drifted by on the low side. I’m yet to break par.
A well-directed attempt crept under, rather than over, the crossbar meaning the spoils were shared in a 12-12 draw.
He did and the scorecard will forever read A.Swann b G.Swann 0.
Well he was and they didn’t.
Admittedly there isn’t really a great deal of relevance, or any come to think of it, between a handful of episodes from my sporting past and the current Ashes series but it shouldn’t work the grey matter too strenuously to spot the trend in the aforementioned examples.
And it was a tweet from an anonymous England supporter – not quoted verbatim but definitely mentioning the ‘walked all over’ element used above – in the aftermath of the Old Trafford Test that both annoyed and provided the idea for what you’re now reading.
‘If’ gets bandied around in all manner of situations and there has plenty of post-Ashes use. Sometimes it’s used as a perfectly reasonable argument so this is no all-encompassing condemnation but often it’s a pointless attempt to, for want of a better term, make a point.
Watch, read about, discuss any sporting event and you will almost be guaranteed to hear something along the lines of ‘If he/she had/hadn’t done x then y would’ve happened’.
No explanation, no rational logic, no pause to think about what’s being offered up, just a substance-free soundbite which would barely stand up to the most basic scrutiny. Place it in the past tense and the statements become even more meaningless.
Quite simply, how do you know? How does anyone? Until the Back to the Future Delorean actually becomes reality, then that is how it will always be.
The presence of Smith in the Australian side was a key factor in their retaining of the Ashes – how could it not be given he is the best Test batsman in the world at the current time and he’s reeled off close on 700 runs in five innings?
However, to simplify the contest into one variable among many is so wide of the mark as to render it as merely gibberish.
Australia are ahead in the series because their batting order, despite its flaws, has performed better than its English counterpart, their bowling attack has been more consistently penetrative and they have been the better all-round outfit.
Travis Head played an important hand in the second Ashes Test at Lord’s. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP)
In the most basic terms, you aren’t going to win many series, and especially against very good bowling units, when three of your batsmen can barely muster a score and a couple of others only spasmodically.
England have had their moments: reducing Australia to eight for not many and Rory Burns’ hundred at Edgbaston; Jofra Archer at Lord’s; Stuart Broad’s excellence; Ben Stokes’ outrageous century at Headingley; but these have been against the tide as opposed to with it.
And Australia would be able to counter with their own: Smith; Matthew Wade’s century and Nathan Lyon’s performance in Birmingham; the emergence of Marnus Labuschagne; the outstanding Pat Cummins and relentlessness of his seam-bowling colleagues; all have enabled the tourists to dictate for the most part.
Yes there was the twitchy afternoon on day five at Lord’s and the subsequent capitulation in Leeds but the balance for the majority has been weighted in Australia’s favour and if this isn’t apparent, even to the most ardent England fan, then they’re looking in the opposite direction.
Smith has been a cut above anything else on show in terms of individual performance, and he has been nothing short of exceptional, but just take a look at the whole picture and not just the most eye-catching part.
The superior team have the urn and that’s that.
If only Jimmy Anderson had been fit …
HR
Roar Rookie
Yeah, that's a joyous sight I'll miss. That, and him absolutely losing it when he gets burned on an LBW.
Samlaurence26
Roar Rookie
But I love watching him get his middle stump knocked out of the ground
dungerBob
Roar Rookie
I’m guessing your brother might be Grame Swann. He had the best arm ball in world cricket for a while there. He was the Broad of his day in that he was murder on our left handers. .. Spot on re the what if’s btw. It’s just pure conjecture leading to fantasy outcomes. Yet there are some people who seem to convince themselves that what they think would have happened actually did happen. .. Anyway, chin up. Our team has already said they want to win the series outright. I guess even a draw would do that but they want to win this final game. Putting pay to that should annoy us considerably so it’s all to play for.
U
Roar Rookie
Pope averages 60 in county cricket and already has test experience. I’d consider someone like James Hildreth. Lots of county cricket with an average of 45. Could do a good Rogers/Voges role for a short period
Simoc
Guest
Here's another if. If England win the final test the series will be drawn despite Australia's supposed superiority. Certainly Australia came in better prepared and with better plans than England. I reckoned Roots bowling management is hopeless. He has wrecked Stokes. We really want to win this series before going overboard about beating a hopelessly performed England batting line-up.
HR
Roar Rookie
Looks like they're not persisting with Roy, at least.
HR
Roar Rookie
A bit under 13 and a half, which is a huge workload. Compare that to Michael Holding (chosen simply because he mentioned it in one of the broadcasts), who played 60 tests over 12 years.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Cook - "He played 161 tests in 12 years. Ponting played 168 tests in 17 years." That's an insane amount of Test cricket in such a compressed period. What is that, 14 Tests a year?
Kurt
Guest
I'm perfectly happy to get stuck into the englanders for their general poor behaviour this series, but to be fair the whole 'take Smith out and we win the Ashes blah blah blah' shtick has been limited to a few randoms on social media. That's not really a sound basis for the number of articles this particular issue has spawned.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Yeah, I don't really think Cook will come out of retirement, but it's still an enticing prospect! England is just SO down on talent/settled line up at the moment, they just really need a couple of old heads/steadiers in there until they get some form of settled structure back. That could take a couple of years.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Yeah, Sibley, Northeast, Pope and Crawley I think are the main names I've heard put forward.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Can't see it happening. It might give better immediate, short term, benefits for a couple of years if he came back with a renewed passion for the game and such. But it would likely just delay the pain slightly. At some point they need to bring through some new, young openers. Cook is only 34, but he's still played 161 tests, which is a lot of tests. It puts him 7th on the all-time list of most test appearances. England just played a lot of tests, more than anyone else, through that time. So it isn't surprising that it might wear a player out younger than playing for other countries who play less tests. He played 161 tests in 12 years. Ponting played 168 tests in 17 years. Names I've heard thrown around lots are more names like Sibley, Crawley, Pope. Might become a bit of a rebuilding period with some young kids in the team, but might be worth it.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Of course it’s ludicrous to say that without our best player we wouldn’t have won. Yes we have the better performed team thanks to Smith, the bowling and - I would add - the catching, one of England’s weaknesses. But it’s been despite the rest of the batting lineup. If you take out Smith and Stokes from the respective top orders, the other 5 English batsmen have outscored their Australian counterparts by nearly 100 runs. Though Australia has had a better tail. But no point overdoing the analysis of why we have the better team unless we actually win the series. If England win at the Oval, they could actually have claim to have had the better of three of the five matches (it’s just as pointless for us to say we had the better of Headingly as it is for England to say they would have won the series without Smith).
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
No he wasn’t. He had the fourth best average among all batsmen in Division Two, which is significantly below Sheffield Shield standard. The best was Dane Vilas, who averages 107 compared to Labuschagne’s 65. Vilas has the magnificent Test average of 10 after 6 Tests. A number of players who averaged in the 50s in Division One arguably were more impressive too.
JamesH
Roar Guru
Sibley and Northeast surely have more to offer than what we've seen from Roy and Buttler so far this series.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Agreed. For all the talk of whether Smith is the difference in the series outcome, we can't forget that it is Australia that is touring England. Even if the series were drawn (and I hope it isn't, in fact I'm confident it won't be) this is still an excellent showing by this Australian side in foreign conditions on the back of a grueling/lengthy tour. This Test side, like the ODI side, has come from a long way back in the past 12-18 months.
Flexis
Roar Rookie
They’ve also gone off a bit early too. If by some divine miracle Smith doesn’t contribute across either innings and we still manage to win the 5th test that excuse won’t be as strong.
Flexis
Roar Rookie
Jimmy more or less admitted that he wouldn’t have made a difference anyhow. Apparently the pitches were too flat ;)
JGK
Roar Guru
Actually, if not for Stokes we'd probably be 4-0 up.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Australia has scored 351 more runs than England this series so far. Happy to take Smith's performances out if we do so for their leading run scorer in Ben Stokes, in which case Australia has still out-scored England so far!