Kridaya Cricket Blog

Like Ducking Beamers did, I took a look back at my Ashes predictions. It was not a happy experience as I got most of them wrong. Surprisingly though, I got 4 out of 5 Test results right, the only one wrong being the Lord’s Test which went England’s way instead of Australia’s. The caveat is that I thought the last Test would be a dead rubber instead of a decider.

So what went wrong and what went right?

1. Hughes being dropped after the second Test despite the presence of Hussey who was even worse and did nothing to help Australia.
2. Pietersen out because of injury. This was somewhat predictable, but I thought Flintoff was more likely to be out by injury than Pietersen.
3. The two 5-wicket hauls of Stuart Broad. Given enough chances, such performances are perhaps inevitable. I still don’t think he should be in the team, but with Flintoff gone, England do not have any other all-rounder.
4. I was not wrong about Johnson’s batting, because his South African performances were way beyond his lifetime accomplishments. So it had to regress towards the norm. But his bowling also had a turn for the worse, which I didn’t expect. Nevertheless, he still took 20 wickets, two less than the top wicket-taker, Hilfenhaus.
5. I didn’t expect Michael Clarke to do as well as he did. But his failures usually mirrored Australian’s failures. So in a way, his contribution to the series was less than what would be suggested by his averages.

Other points were more-or-less a roll of the dice. So I am not too bothered about them.

The first day of this Test was, without any doubt, the worst day of the series for England and it promises to get even worse. Australia seem intent to inflict as much pain on England as possible. And unless England do something truly amazing in the second innings, the match is as good as lost.

Which, in the greater scheme of things, is not so bad at all. At the start of the series, you would have been hard pressed to imagine England leading at the mid-point mark. So even if everything goes south for England from here on, they will only lose the series 1-2 which is quite a comeback from their 0-5 thrashing on their last tour of Australia.

And of course, England can always hope for the next Test. An Australian victory in this Test would set it up nicely. A win or draw in the final Test will help Australia retain the Ashes. England have to play for a win. A draw in this Test would have meant England trying to play for a draw in the final Test which would have made for dull viewing.

It was never going to be an easy task for England to force a win and so it proved. Australia lost just three wickets all day and did not invite England to bat again. As I mentioned yesterday, Australia’s one hope of winning was if they were bowled out with a 100+ lead and they came back to knock England out. The slim pickings of the English bowlers proved both a blessing and a curse – it allowed Australia to reach safety, but it offered them no hope of bowling England out.

Michael Hussey made a fighting 64: not enough to keep the critics quiet, but just enough to be retained for the next Test. A great catch by Anderson ruined Marcus North’s perfect 50-to-100 conversion rate. And Clarke made his second century of the tour, though his slow-down tactics at the end seemed weird – maybe he was just put off by North’s dismissal. If it was meant to mess with England’s head, it probably backfired when the bails failed to topple once and when he was caught off a no-ball. Manou did not have much time to make an impression.

On the other side, while the English bowling has been better than expected, they have been found missing in many sessions during this series. If they have to keep Australia under pressure, they need to strike more consistently. Also, in retrospect, Anderson should have bowled earlier in the day – lightning doesn’t strike twice!

So it is down to the final two Tests. England need to draw the next two or win at least one. Australia need to win just one more. A draw or an Australian win in the next Test will leave all to play for in the final match.

Once again, it feels very strange to see England in the driver’s seat in a Test against Australia. After the Cardiff Test, many people pointed out that England, having been outplayed, had no right to celebrate. But right now, it looks like Anderson and Panesar marked a change in England’s fortunes. Since then, Australia have had very little to cheer.

I would plump for 75% chance of a draw tomorrow, 20% an England win and 5% an Australian victory. If the latter happens, it would probably be accidental than deliberate. For example, if Australia get bowled out with a 120+ lead and England chase and have a sensational collapse. I don’t think that Australia are likely to try to set England a target and go for a declaration. After all, Australia simply need to draw the series to retain the Ashes. They don’t want to lose the Test and end up having to win the next two matches.

There are 98 overs tomorrow. An England victory requires England to take the remaining 8 Australia wickets within 60 overs or so, leaving them a chase in 35-odd overs. This is assuming that the run rate is well under control because of wickets falling. On the other hand, if the Australians are more belligerent, England has to wrap it more quickly.

I guess the first hour or so will determine the outcome. A couple of quick wickets putting Australia on the backfoot will set up things nicely. Australia would consider itself safe if it can reach a lead of 100 with less than 3 wickets falling. The Australians, like the English, have a tail that can make some runs.

The people to look for on the final day? Hussey is surely playing for his place in the team. If he misses out and Australia lose, I cannot think of any reason why he should still be playing in the next Test. Manou has the opportunity to make a mark. The rest of the Australian side looks safe, though North has not done much after his unbeaten 125 in the first Test.

Swann may play a greater role on the final day – he bowled just 2 overs in the first innings taking one wicket. Broad, wicketless in the first innings, needs to step up. Will England overbowl Flintoff on the final day? Anderson and Onions have a chance for glory here with a ten-wicket match haul, if they can take advantage of early conditions tomorrow.

If Strauss, who is on 64 not out in the present Test, makes another 36 runs, he would have made 19 centuries against 14 fifties. That would raise his conversion rate to 58%, making Strauss mid-way between Bradman and the rest of the competition. This is an astounding conversion rate, all the more so because it is over a career of 65 Tests, not an anamoly of playing a few Tests and having a purple patch.

On the other hand, Strauss’s career average is a respectable, but not outstanding 45.09. The contrast between this average and his tendency towards centuries is very stark. So what is going on here? Well, here is a graph to explain that:

Strauss has been dismissed for single digits every fourth innings and under 20 every third innings. Talk about early nerves. Once he crosses 50, the game changes. He is still more likely to fall in the 50’s or 60’s, but he has only fallen once in his 70’s and 80’s. And as every cricket fan now knows, he is getting that century.

Ominously for Australia, Strauss seems to have overcome his very early jitters recently. His last single digit score was almost 15 innings ago. He is still making those scores in the teens. Australia need to come up with a plan to find out how they can take him out early, otherwise he is going to stick there and the Ashes will stick with him.

It is funny how cricket turns up the unexpected. Before the Ashes started, you would have been very comfortable laying your money on England worrying about its lineup based on form and Australia doing so on injury. How the tables have turned as England reach the mid-point leading 1-0 and Australia trying to come up with the right answer.

It is definite that Pietersen will be out because of his Achilles injury and perhaps Flintoff too. Bell will be the first replacement and Harmison may get the other remaining spot. That leaves the English batting a little weakened. As for bowling, both Flintoff and Harmison have never been consistent, so it is difficult to say who would be the better bowler. In hindsight, Flintoff won the bowling honors at Lord’s, but it was never a given before the Test.

Australia have to contend with Johnson’s poor showing in the first two Tests. Unable to make a return to form in the tour match against Northamptonshire, he is the most likely one to be dropped. Hughes is the other possible candidate to sit on the benches, even though he did make 68 in the last innings of the tour match. Johnson is likely to be replaced by Clark or Lee, while Hughes by Shane Watson.

The Johnson replacement would plug an open wound in the Australian side. Although Johnson has taken 8 wickets in the first two Tests, he has leaked a lot of runs creating pressure on the rest of the team. The main downside is that Australia will miss his aggressive batting.

Shane Watson shone in the tour match and is hot favorite for replacing Hughes. His presence in the side also provides another bowling option for the Australians. But I am not sure if Australia should go this route. Hughes should be given some more rope given the strong Australian batting order, which, to be fair, failed only once in this series so far.

England must have had a sleepless night yesterday. Imagine losing a Test after setting a target of 522. Andrew Strauss, in particular, must have been re-thinking that declaration over and over again. With most teams, defending 200 more runs with only 5 wickets to get is a good situation. With the Australians, it seems scary.

In the end, England cleaned it up without too much worry. The second over of the day claimed Haddin. While Clarke and Johnson put a mini-stand, once Clarke fell to Swann, England did not waste too much time cleaning up the tail. Johnson took the opportunity to make a quick 63, but it was only delaying the inevitable without any support from the other side.

And so, Australia lose an Ashes Test for the first time in ages. It was not easy – 406 is among the top scores made in the last innings. And while Clarke and Haddin were there yesterday, they looked like they would win. In the end, their failures in this Test added up – letting the English tail go past 400, the first innings failure and not being able to stop England’s rampage in the second innings.

The Ashes is not over by any means. The last time Australia lost a Lord’s Test, they won the series. Will they repeat that, or will Ponting be the Australian captain who loses two Ashes series? Australia have the talent to bounce back. Their main weakness is the bowling attack that has been toothless against the English batsmen. It is probably time to bring Lee and Clark back, though I would favor Clark over Lee.

England have their own troubles. Injuries to Flintoff and Pietersen make their availability for the next Test suspect. The bowling is as bad as, if not worse than, the Australians. I find it incredible that Strauss still believes that Broad can take wickets. England needs to bring in better firepower if they want to stop a vengeful, marauding Australian team in the third Test.

This is the reason why Australia is No. 1. Not South Africa. Not India. And not any of the rest. Most teams faced with a mammoth 500+ target in the last innings and two days to play would have simply folded up their tent and spent the fifth day on the beach. In contrast, the Australians have all the momentum with an unbeaten 185-run partnership for the sixth wicket.

When England declared, some Australians would have been praying for rain. At the end of the day, only the English are doing any rain dances. But there won’t be any rain tomorrow. Nor with just 2 runs per over required over the day to win the match, will defense (in bowling) save England.

It has been official for sometime now that the English bowling is garbage of the worst sort. They have exactly one injured bowler who is intimidating and even he gets wickets via umpiring errors. The rest of the bowling can neither take wickets nor restrict the scoring rate. Most of the first innings wickets came through unforced mistakes. Few through any strong bowling effort.

What surprises me is that apparently the English team management knows this and still makes the wrong choices. If your bowling needs 180 overs to bowl out an opposition, you are going to lose. Why not bat another 30 overs, pile up another 100 runs and give your bowlers 150 overs so that if they continue to bowl like they are used to, you don’t lose the match?

Perhaps the English captain and coach read the newspapers where the nothing-to-lose commentators advocate humiliating the Australians. But those who try to teach the Australians end up being the fools themselves. If England manages to squeak by with a win, they can consider themselves lucky. Mind games and strutting are for champions, not upstarts.

First of all, I am flabbergasted that England is even in a position that it could tell Australia to follow on. How many people would have bet on that before this game? Especially after they just managed to hang on to save the Cardiff Test.

There were good reasons for England to have enforced the follow-on. There is the possibility of rain. The pitch will remain playable on the last two days. A huge England target with less time (5 sessions) may get Australia playing for a draw on a dead pitch.

That is all true, but I think it misses the big picture. England are the underdogs in this contest and, regardless of all the PR talk, they probably never backed themselves to be in a winning position against the Australians. While the 2005 series was great, that team was coming off a high with several victories in hand, while the present team could not even beat the West Indies in their away tour.

So now, they find themselves dominant. The important thing is to preserve and protect the gains and ensure that there is no likelihood of a loss. If England manage to bat till lunch tomorrow, the chances of Australia winning are infinitesimal. Even if Australia manage to draw, that is okay.

It is different with a team like Australia, who are natural-born winners. When they are ahead, they have the confidence to back them. If Australia were in the same situation, they would have asked England to bat on, and then bowled them out in no time.

But England will always have Adelaide – the match they should never have lost. As long as those memories remain, they will never attempt any risk from a winning position. Safety first. Whether that is right or wrong is a different matter.

At the beginning of the day, England would have been happy with 364/6 at stumps. But considering that they had a close-to-double-century opening partnership, they could have done much better. But most of the wickets were prised out, not thrown away. And Strauss is still there, hopefully to grab a few more runs with the tail to put England with something significant to defend.

There were quite a few surprises:

1. Collingwood throwing away his wicket. I wouldn’t blame him. He probably spent his full annual quota of concentration in the Cardiff Test.
2. And gifting it to Clarke. This kind of thing makes you wonder why Ponting did not try him against Anderson and Panesar. Remember his 3 wickets in the penultimate over against India. For some reason, Clarke has the knack of taking wickets when you least expect him to.
3. England literally hitting Hauritz out of the attack (by hurting his finger). All the more reason why they shouldn’t have allowed another spinner to take a wicket. Apparently, nothing was broken, but I wonder if Hauritz will bowl tomorrow. And if he doesn’t bowl well, will Ponting think it is because of the finger and send him out to pasture.
4. Broad in the team. He needs to stay with the captain tomorrow and hit something. Nobody expects him to take wickets.
5. Pietersen. Curiouser and curiouser. No big scores against the enemy yet. What happened to him?
6. Johnson. 19-2-107-2. Trash bowling except for the wicket-taking balls. Most responsible for England’s good strike rate.
7. North bowling so many overs. Economical, but shouldn’t Australia be mixing it up a bit?

This is no surprise: Andrew Strauss making another century after reaching his fifty. He now has 14 fifties and 18 hundreds. It is his fourth century this year. Since his last fifty in August 2008, he has made six centuries without falling between 50 and 100. Surprisingly, his highest score is only 177. Now is as good a time to make a double-century as ever.

As for the Australians, I am sure that Johnson will make a strong comeback with his bowling, but if he doesn’t, Australia has a dilemma on its hands. Johnson brings significant strength to the lower batting order, but Australia’s top order is already strong and they are stuck at seeing the England batsmen hang around for too long. England survived 105 overs in both innings and Australia probably lost a chance to win the match when Swann and Anderson made 68 for the ninth wicket. Someone like Stuart Clark would be more than useful.