Ashes 2011 (3 page)

When did this last happen? England arrived with the Ashes four years ago, but vestigial belief in their hopes lasted approximately one ball – the Steve Harmison wide that zeroed in on Andrew Flintoff's sternum at second slip. Even when England last prevailed down under in Australia, they were decidedly unfancied, their tri-cornered triumph of 1986–87 coming after an immortal three-pronged assessment of their capabilities from the
Independent
's Martin Johnson: 'Can't bat, can't bowl, can't field.'

There was 1978–79, although the forecast that stands out from that series was Australian captain Graham Yallop's flippant prediction of a six-nil scoreline, which Mike Brearley's Englishmen almost entirely reversed. You must look back a further twenty years for a parallel with England's current favouritism, when Peter May's team of the talents arrived in Australia tipped to carry all before them – and were right royally ripped apart.

Expectations weren't ill-founded. It's hard to pick a bone with selection when you run your eye down the MCC team sheet, studded with such names as May, Cowdrey, Graveney, Bailey, Evans, Laker, Lock, Trueman, Statham and Tyson. As Jack Fingleton records in his classic account
Four Chukkas to Australia,
May's team was thought so strong that it would have 'played the Rest of the World and beaten them'; their 4–0 defeat duly became the 'biggest upset of modern cricket times'.

One individual not surprised was May himself. He embarked on the trip full of foreboding, believing 'we were always going to struggle'. The series was overshadowed by the Australian chuckers to which Fingleton's title slyly referred, but May declined to use this as an excuse, at the time or in retrospect: 'Australian cricket played on huge ovals is a young man's game and we had too many players on their last tour. If you have lost the keen edge, Australia finds it out.'

So how does an XI's reputation inflate beyond its abilities, and do any such considerations apply to the circumstances preceding this Ashes series? May points to one common mistake: the tendency to read teams on paper, rather than gauge the potentialities of individuals at particular stages in their careers and against particular oppositions.

Something similar applied ahead of the Ashes of 2005. On Statsguru, Ricky Ponting's team looked unassailable. McGrath, Lee, Gillespie and Warne versus Harmison, Flintoff, Jones and Giles? And had Glenn McGrath been injured at the end of the summer and Simon Jones at the start, what price the MBEs and open-top bus rides? Yet, as Adam Gilchrist has since admitted, the Australians, for all their battle honours, were an unhappy side, grumpily led by Ricky Ponting, absent-mindedly coached by John Buchanan. Andrew Strauss has also confided that a key conversation for him that summer was with Stephen Fleming after England's defeat at Lord's. Fleming urged Strauss to look past his chagrin – Australia were vulnerable, apprehensive about England's pace – and feeling turned out to matter more than figures.

An interesting aspect of the prognostications about the forthcoming Ashes is that they might be thought guilty of the opposite sin, of being intuitive rather than empirical. Alastair Cook, Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen rather drifted through the northern summer, in Pietersen's case drifting out. Andrew Strauss averages less than 25 in Australia and barely 30 this calendar year. Of England's key bowlers, Graeme Swann took just six wickets in the first four Tests of last year's Ashes, while Jimmy Anderson has paid 56 runs for each of his Australian wickets and 82 runs for each of his wickets in Australia. The vibe around England is that of a resourceful, well-led and well-coached team rather than a particularly accomplished one. But from whom do we members of the media pick up that vibe? Often from others just like ourselves, where it's easy to fall in with a consensus.

How, meanwhile, does one read form ahead of an Ashes series? Ashes form seemed to point only one way in 1958–59. England had won the three preceding Ashes series; Australia had won only two and lost eight of the previous sixteen Ashes Tests. Yet there were other indicators. England had toured South Africa in 1956–57 and been well held; a year later, Australia had stuffed the Springboks out of sight, Richie Benaud and Alan Davidson, previously disappointments against England, suddenly coming of age. Why did observers choose to ignore this? Perhaps because of the Ashes' cultural hold on both countries – the sense that only what happened in Anglo-Australian competition counted. Perhaps also because overseas Test matches then took place well out of sight. Even their own countrymen were unaware what all-rounders Benaud and Davidson had turned into.

Those considerations do not apply today. The Ashes are no longer the only game in town, nor do the cricket teams of Australia and England disappear from the view of their own followers when abroad, even if it is true that foreign cricket feats still tend to be discounted, football lording it over the sporting winter of both countries. A kind of comparative indicator is available today in the respective recent meetings of Australia and England with Pakistan. But who can now say with confidence that performances against Pakistan are corroborative of anything?

The ultimate reason to distrust form seems to me to be just how different Ashes cricket has become from even the rest of Test cricket. The fashion nowadays is for two- and three-Test series; Australia last played a five-Test series against anyone other than England ten years ago; England last played a five-Test series against anyone other than Australia six years ago. Test cricket over the shorter time span is often about winning first up, then attempting to live off that modish cricket concept of 'momentum'; Ashes cricket, over twenty-five days, fluctuates naturally, involves accepting that this will be so, and cultivating the competence of regrouping. It is also a different physical proposition. The world now seems to want its cricket games to end in three hours. Each day this summer, Australia and England will spend almost as long as that simply
preparing
to play; twice, they face back-to-back Tests. So this is not like wondering whether racehorses bred to gallop a mile have it in them to tackle ten furlongs; it's comparable to setting thoroughbreds the challenge of a fifteen-mile cross-country course lined with hurdles and equestrian hazards.

While contemplating the Ashes in advance might be confounding, it also reminds us of just how intricate are the contests within the contest of a team game played in changeable conditions over such a long duration. We are not simply looking at two teams; we are looking at two teams
against each other
and over the longest cricket haul of all. Swann has prospered against left-handers in his career, but how many will Australia pick? Strauss has fallen five times to Zaheer Khan in five Tests and four times to Mohammed Aamer in four, so how will he deal with the similarly left-armed Bollinger? And because England and Australia are now both middling international teams, it is almost the case that the longer you dwell on one or the other, the more palpable seem their vulnerabilities. England, you think, can't possibly be favourites – until you start looking at Australia.

At any one time in Australian domestic cricket, there are sixty-six players: eleven for each of the six first-class states. With the choice of John Hastings and Mitchell Starc for the last one-day international against India, preparatory to the Ashes summer, a curious symmetry was achieved. The number of Australian cricketers whom in the last two years have played Test matches, one-day internationals, T20 internationals, gone on tours or represented Australia A is ... sixty-six.

When Bob Simpson became Australia's coach in the mid-1980s, he performed a similar exercise. On his figurings, there were forty-four players in the Sheffield Shield who had played some form of international cricket. This, opined Simmo, was 'a joke'. Numbers had blown out partly because of rebel tours and retirements, but he was adamant: 'There has never been a period in history when Australia had forty-four players good enough to play for their country.'

Has the game changed so much in the intervening period that this is no longer true? Workload is more sedulously managed by player rotation these days, even if this never seems to prevent anyone getting injured: in fact, if Doug Bollinger's breakdown in Bangalore is indicative, under-bowling is every bit as problematic as overbowling.

There are now three versions of the game where there were two, although on this list only three players have played T20 internationals alone. Fully forty-one players have played Test matches or one-day internationals, and there's actually a few more still involved in interstate cricket outside the sixty-six whom it could be argued deserve another look, including four very sweet strikers of a cricket ball in Brad Hodge, Mark Cosgrove, Phil Jaques and Luke Pomersbach. An honourable mention should also be made of Chris Rogers, with one lonely Test cap to show for almost 15,000 first-class runs at an average of 52.

So why is Australia cultivating selection habits that appear as random as Mitchell Johnson's pitch map? One reason – and this is hardly a phenomenon confined to Australia – is that first-class and top-class cricketers now mix like oil and water. Want to see whether Clinton McKay has what it takes to succeed at international level? You'll have to pick him at international level, because he won't encounter any Test-match batsmen in the Sheffield Shield.

One rationale, meanwhile, is that modern international cricket calls for strength in depth. Teams very seldom have the opportunity to select their first-choice XI. Rest is required. Injuries take their toll. Boot camps crop up. There's a logic to giving a taste of the big time to as wide a circle of players as possible, so that they are at least partly prepared when a more permanent turn comes.

Yet there's something more than a little disorienting about this turnover. Many hints have been given. Few cases have been made. In Australia's green and golden age, there was always a solid sense of who was next in the pecking order. But who is
primus inter pares
among Adam Voges, Callum Ferguson, Cameron White and David Hussey? Who is the next best thing out of Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris or Shaun Tait? Above all, where is the spin to come from, the incumbent Nathan Hauritz suddenly looking like an outcumbent?

This turnover coexists paradoxically with a sense of inertia where Australia's troubled batting is concerned. Since Matthew Hayden's retirement, Australia's top six has been occupied by only seven batsmen, and it is not as though any of them, save the ersatz openers Simon Katich and Shane Watson, has made an unassailable case for continued selection. The national selection panel – or the NSP as it is known in these acronym-happy times – has created not just a closed shop, but a closed shop without any opening hours on the front door, and precious little stock on the shelves.

For reference, here is our cream-of-the-crop elite sixty-six chosen for Australian representative teams in the last two years.

Chosen for Tests, ODIs or T20Is: Travis Birt, Doug Bollinger, Nathan Bracken, Daniel Christian, Stuart Clark, Michael Clarke, Callum Ferguson, Brett Geeves, Peter George, Brad Haddin, Ryan Harris, Shane Harwood, John Hastings, Nathan Hauritz, Matt Hayden, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Hopes, Phil Hughes, David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Simon Katich, Jason Krejza, Ben Laughlin, Brett Lee, Andrew McDonald, Bryce McGain, Clinton McKay, Graham Manou, Shaun Marsh, Dirk Nannes, Marcus North, Steve O'Keefe, Tim Paine, Ricky Ponting, Peter Siddle, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Andrew Symonds, Shaun Tait, Adam Voges, David Warner, Shane Watson, Cameron White.

Also chosen in Australian touring teams: Burt Cockley, Jon Holland, Usman Khawaja, James Pattinson.

Australia A: George Bailey, Ryan Broad, Luke Butterworth, Beau Casson, Ed Cowan, Xavier Doherty, Brendan Drew, Luke Feldman, Aaron Finch, Peter Forrest, Jake Haberfield, Michael Klinger, Ashley Noffke, Luke Ronchi, Matt Wade.

No tribute to a foreign cricketer down under is settled so grudgingly but meaningfully as the one about them 'playing like an Australian'. Ian Botham was honoured with the description, and revelled in it. Likewise Freddie Flintoff. Darren Gough had his moments too.

Andrew Strauss has a head start. Born in Johannesburg, he was brought to Melbourne for two years by his father's career in insurance broking, and before the family relocated to London even developed an Aussie twang. He later wintered here, playing first-grade cricket in Sydney and undergoing elite coaching in Adelaide.

In the lives of both captains this summer, the rowdy, round-the-clock Bourbon & Beefsteak in Kings Cross, Sydney, has loomed large. It was where Ricky Ponting picked up a famous after-hours shiner from an off-duty bouncer; it was also where Andrew Strauss met the woman who would become his wife, actress Ruth McDonald, whose family come from outside Ballarat. Those with an eye for auspices will have noted that the first English captain to win the Ashes, Ivo Bligh, also married an Australian; mind you, so did the perennially unsuccessful Archie MacLaren.

Promising stuff – except Strauss spoils it by appearing every inch an Englishman, at the crease, in the field and behind the press conference microphone, twenty-five years having rounded the flat vowels he developed at Camberwell Grammar. No English captain since Strauss's Middlesex forebear, Sydney-born Gubby Allen, will have felt so instinctively comfortable with the country, the climate and the customs. Yet the three lions fit tight: expect no crowd-pleasing gestures, like affecting an Akubra or professing an appreciation of Kylie, from this verbal nudger and nurdler.

Thirty-three-year-old Strauss arrives in what should be his cricketing prime. Captaincy has agreed with him. He has led England to thirteen wins and only four defeats in twenty-seven Tests, a win-loss ration superior to Richie Benaud's or Ian Chappell's – if not quite the equal of Ponting's. He has also accumulated six hundreds in the role, and opened a six-run edge on his average in the ranks.