ASHES REVIEW: Where to for Australia?

At long last the Ashes are mercifully over. The final act of the series was a fittingly lazy prod at a short ball from Michael Beer that trickled lamely back onto the stumps. With this dismissal England won the 5th Test at Sydney by an innings and 83 runs, the narrowest of their three wins in the series. It is statistics like these which point to the magnitude of Australia's dismal failure. Due praise must be heaped on Andrew Strauss' men who performed with a discipline and consistent intensity unprecedented in my lifetime. But for any blatantly prejudiced and angry Australia, it is the systematic failure on and off the field of our boys which has been the true headline grabber.

The painful irony of this disaster of a summer is that it all started to spectacularly. England dismissed inside the first day at Brisbane on the back of a rousing spell of devastating fast bowler from Peter Siddle. Looking back, it was really only this opening day and the 2nd day in Perth when Mitchell Johnson showed fleeting heroics where Australia could be said to have truly shown any sort of dominance. The only perverse consolation out of the series is that England there were so many thoroughly humiliating days that they have blurred into one mind-numbing mesh, with nothing really standing out. After the series opener in Brisbane I thought it would take many years to forget the remarkable English 2nd innings, when they amassed 519 runs for just a single wicket lost. As it happens, it now sits long abandoned in the recesses of the memory, usurped by the comprehensive embarrassment of Adelaide, getting skittled for 98 in Melbourne, and England's mammoth 644 in Sydney.

It's tempting to award every player in the Aussie side a blanket single star but one must try to look through the petulant short term reactions of such a result and be more objective and mature. Here are my assessments on five of our best, if I can muster five.

 Michael Hussey - ****

Obviously a huge outlying shining light for Australia with his efforts. But even still, Hussey's performance is soured slightly by the fact that he contributed very little in the last two tests, always falling at particularly vital pressure situations after getting his eye in. Nevertheless, it was so refreshing to see a flowing Hussey in full flight, and 570 runs at 63 is a great series by anyone (perhaps except Bradman...or Alastair Cook's standards). His epic in Brisbane and crucial match winning hundred in Perth were true classics.

Shane Watson - ***

 There is something immensely frustrating about Shane Watson, a man with the technique and temperament to shadow most of his team-mates, yet who still fails to rack up the dizzying statistics he in reality should. He threatened even Hussey's status as Australia's most consistent batsman of the series, and in all the repeating calamitous collapses from the top order, almost invariably was the survivor, seeing out the new ball. Right as this storm was weathered, with 40 or 50 on the board and a big score beckoning though, comes the customary wicket, usually a frustratingly soft regulation catch behind or LBW. His running between wickets is also beginning to reach Inzamam-like status in its shoddiness. However he is still one of the few Australians who can hold his head up high at all. Adding to this was his underused bowling wares, which were always penetrating and often far outstripped the genuine quicks.

Brad Haddin - ***

 Haddin's performance kind of lies somewhere between Hussey and Watson. His triple stand with Hussey in Brisbane which produced a majestic innings of 136 was not even close to equaled by any other batsman throughout the series. The Hussey-like part comes from the fact that as the series went on and they became the proclaimed savious, the only pair we could rely on, Haddin like Hussey faltered and didn't match his early heights in Melbourne or Sydney. The Watson-like part comes from Haddin being unfailingly consistent but aside from Brisbane, not getting past that 50-60 mark.

 Peter Siddle - ***

I'm a sensitive new-age guy. I invest emotionally with women. I have an unhealthy reliance on the Internet. I'm partial to a bit of Chicago and Air Supply. Actually that last bit isn't true at all. Notwithstanding, my sentimental side wants to give four stars to Siddle just for being so likable and for trying so hard. Siddle's fighting batting when all was lost on more than one occasion was telling. Siddle's pair of six-wicket hauls in Brisbane and Melbourne were both extremely impressive, the first as a genuine match winning spell, the second for its grit and unwavering intensity over long periods. Unfortunately the snag in the series for Siddle was that he essentially was of little use for the rest of the entire series outside those hauls. The two innings' in question accounted for 12 wickets at 10.75 apiece. Outside this he took 2 wickets at 177.50, figures not even the consistently flat and unpenetrating Ben Hilfenhaus could match. In truth both bowled well many times, but fundamentally lack a killer variety, and are inconsistent in their sameness.

Ryan Harris - ***

The question to ask now as a perfect cliche, is what now for Australian cricket? Luckily, or perhaps not, there is no time to deal with such questions yet. The limited overs portion of the summer will soon begin in earnest, and while these games always retain a degree of superfluousness, they at least mean something this year as the world cup comes immediately afterwards. After three consecutive tournaments of utter dominance, it would be the final marker of the true end of an era if Australia failed in its title defence. After the world cup is completely in April, four months pass until Australia's next test series in Sri Lanka. Ponting's performance as captain and batsman in the world cup will make a big difference in final decisions for this tour. The talent is there in the Australian line-up, the discipline and seasoned winning know-how is not. With Simon Katich returning in place of the still promising but not quite ready Phil Hughes, Khawaja as the exciting new no.3, and Ponting at 6, we'd have a batting line-up able to dominate anyone on its day, if still slightly below the nauseatingly brilliant quality of India and South Africa.

The bowling is less simple. Still no spinner has stamped his authority on the team, thanks in part to the selectors' morbid wish to prevent anyone doing so. In the short term Nathan Hauritz must be the way to go, with his NSW team-mates O'Keefe and Smith needing to develop their bowling to become genuine Test all-rounders of the future. The fast bowling stocks are deep and talented. But if Johnson, Siddle, Hilfenhaus, Harris and Bollinger are really the most skilled in the country, is there cause for concern? It's all well and good to praise the England batsman or claim bad luck and a lack of consistency forthcoming in the future as responsible for the displays this summer, but the fact remains the heights England's totals reached, and the regularity with which they did so is unacceptable. If none of those men can prove up to the challenge in the coming year, there's enough in the drawer to replace them wholesale. If anything can rouse consistent quality from the quick men, surely it is that threat.

Again though, all credit to England. They are a side of the quality not seen in the motherland since the Gatting's, Gower's, Gooch's and Botham's reigned over Australia (but certainly not the world) in the 80s, perhaps even the Illingworth led era nearly four decades ago. Hopefully they go on to be an all-time great, record-setting, world-dominating No.1 team. As hard as this would be to swallow, it might just make this Australian team seem less mediocre in context.

1st Test - Brisbane

England - 260 (Bell 76, Cook 67, Siddle 6/54)
Australia - 481 (Hussey 195, Haddin 136, Finn 6/125)
England - 1 dec 519 (Cook 235 n.o, Trott 135 n.o, Strauss 110, North 1/47)
Australia - 1/101 (Ponting 51 n.o, Watson 41 n.o, Broad 1/18)


MATCH DRAWN
MotM - Alastair Cook (Eng)

5 Test series level 0-0 after 1 Test

Full scorecard here. 




2nd Test - Adelaide

Australia - 245 (Hussey 93, Haddin 56, Watson 51, Anderson 4/51)
England - 5 dec 620 (Pietersen 227, Cook 148, Trott 78, Bell 68 n.o)
Australia - 304 (Clarke 80, Watson 57, Hussey 52, Swann 5/91)

England won by An Innings and 71 runs
MotM - Kevin Pietersen (Eng)

England lead 5 Test series 1-0 after 2 Tests

Full Scorecard here.








3rd Test - Perth

Australia - 268 (Johnson 62, Hussey 61, Haddin 53, Anderson 3/61, Tremlett 3/63)
England - 187 (Bell 53, Strauss 52, Johnson 6/38, Harris 3/59)
Australia - 309 (Hussey 116, Watson 95, Tremlett 5/87)
England - 123 (Trott 31, Harris 6/47, Johnson 3/44)

Australia won by 267 runs
MotM - Mitchell Johnson (Aus)

5 Test series level 1-1 after 3 Tests

Full Scorecard here. 




4th Test - Melbourne

Australia - 98 (Clarke 20, Tremlett 4/26, Anderson 4/44)
England - 513 (Trott 168 n.o, Prior 85, Cook 82, Siddle 6/75)
Australia - 258 (Haddin 55 n.o, Watson 54, Siddle 40, Bresnan 4/50)

England won by an Innings and 157 runs
MotM - Jonathon Trott (Eng)

England lead 5 Test series 2-1 after 4 Tests (England retain the Ashes)


Full Scorecard here.




5th Test - Sydney

Australia - 280 (Johnson 53, Watson 45, Khawaja 37, Anderson 4/66)
England - 644 (Cook 189, Prior 118, Bell 115, Johnson 4/168)
Australia - 282 (Smith 54 n.o, Siddle 43, Clarke 41, Anderson 3/61, Tremlett 3/79)

England won by an Innins and 83 runs
MotM - Alastair Cook (Eng)

England win the 5 Test series 3-1
MotS - Alastair Cook (Eng)


Full Scorecard here.