{"id":2602,"date":"2015-07-13T12:46:58","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T11:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2602"},"modified":"2015-07-15T07:33:10","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T06:33:10","slug":"ashes-2015-first-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/2602\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashes 2015: First Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, it seems the cautious optimism I displayed in my Ashes Preview post<\/a> was justified: England have thumped<\/a> Australia in the first test mainly due to their batsmen being able to withstand the Australian bowling attack and the Australian batsmen being crap.<\/p>\n

A word which used to get bandied about a lot during the good times under Andy Flower was “businesslike” or “workmanlike”. \u00a0England’s success came mainly off the back of serious, concentrated, graft rather than displays of brilliance or raw talent (KP was the exception, hence his reputation). \u00a0These terms sum up well the demeanour of the English players during the first test in Cardiff: at stumps at the end of Day 2, Australia were 264\/5 in reply to England’s 430 all out. \u00a0England had taken wickets at steady intervals all afternoon, putting in considerable effort for each, rather than having one of those moments when Broad or Anderson gets you 3 or 4 in a single spell. \u00a0When they interviewed one of the English players as they were walking off the pitch (I forget who it was, mainly because I saw most of the team interviewed over the course of the match) he said they still had a lot of work to do. \u00a0Again at the end of Day 3, when it was known they would need to bowl Australia out for under 411 to win the match, the English player interviewed talked of the work ahead. \u00a0For the English players, they take the professional aspect literally\u00a0by talking of each task ahead as a piece of work that they need to get done, in the same way you or I would in the office. \u00a0They realise that winning a test match against Australia will require serious work and effort. \u00a0This work ethic was evident in the first test, and it paid off.<\/p>\n

As I had implied in my preview post, Australia appeared to hit England’s\u00a0shores believing the media hype that a 5-0 win would be a mere formality. \u00a0That they snapped out of this by lunchtime on Day 1 was encouraging, but what surely must be more worrying for them is that they had no Plan B from that point on. \u00a0Their whole battle-plan was to rely on Johnson and Starc intimidating the opposition batsmen into giving up their wickets while Siddle and Harris block the scoring from the other end, and it’s been this way for years (with some names changing). \u00a0Their batting plan has been to be ultra-aggressive and “get on top of the bowlers” and if this results in a low score, meh the bowlers will make sure we still win. \u00a0This approach has been personified by Darren Lehmann whose aggressive style has been lauded by practically everyone, probably because in Australia it works well.<\/p>\n

The problem is, Australia are now in England. \u00a0It became obvious that the aggressive style wasn’t going to work when the pitch didn’t bounce and England scored 430 in their first innings. \u00a0For the first time in a long time Michael Clarke seemed clueless as to what to do, and Lehmann even more so. \u00a0Australia were shown to be extremely one-dimensional, and unable to cope with things not going their way. \u00a0It is all very well to be snarling, aggressive, and in-your-face when you’re on top, but even a half-decent side needs to be able to dig itself out of a hole when things are going against them, and they failed to do that in this test.<\/p>\n

If I was Australian, this is what would worry me the most. \u00a0England showed in their 5-0 drubbing that a team can be very much less than the sum of its parts, and Australia will now need to make sure they become a team once again. \u00a0This being Australia, you would count on them to do so: they are not half the hardened\u00a0sportsmen they make themselves out to be, but they are not a bunch of girls’ blouses either. \u00a0So you can expect a response from individuals and some better performances at Lord’s this week. \u00a0But Lehmann’s comments, summed up below, ought to cause some concern:<\/p>\n

Australia’s coach Darren Lehmann has described England’s big victory in the first Test as a “minor hiccup”, and has effectively challenged the Lord’s ground staff to produce a quicker pitch for the second match from Thursday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lord’s will be a faster and bouncier pitch that will suit Johnson and Starc more than that of Cardiff, but if he thinks that a slightly better pitch is all that is needed for Australia to claw back the opening loss he is surely\u00a0mistaken. \u00a0England, he might have noticed, also have some reasonably good fast bowlers in Anderson, Broad, and Wood. \u00a0A quicker pitch is not going to make them any easier to handle, and is not going to remove the requirement for his batsmen, at some stage, to knuckle down and spend several hours at the crease. \u00a0One would hope that Lehmann has realised this.<\/p>\n

Many said the first test in Cardiff would be crucial, and it was. \u00a0But the second test at Lord’s will be even more crucial for Australia: if things don’t go their way for long periods in\u00a0this match, and they\u00a0again don’t come up with a Plan B for how to deal with it, they will have been dangerously exposed as a one-dimensional side who can do hyper-aggression and nothing else and achieve success only when conditions suit. \u00a0The series will then be effectively lost.<\/p>\n

England, on the other hand, will be unlikely to get ahead of themselves and will retain the workmanlike approach in dealing with the immediate task at hand and then moving onto the next. \u00a0England supporters will be hoping Cook scores some runs, Lyth, Ballance, and Bell show more consistency and longevity, and the rest keep on doing exactly what they did in Cardiff.<\/p>\n

At the risk of being proved hopelessly wrong, I will stick my neck out and say that an England which is more consistent and familiar with the conditions will beat an improved but still brittle Australian side whose 1 or 2 personnel changes didn’t address the underlying problems.<\/p>\n

Finally, thanks to Michael Jennings for the comments, it’s been good! \u00a0Anyone else is free to join in.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the other things I forgot to mention is the poor manner in which the Australians have managed their wicket-keeping situation. \u00a0Despite Brad Haddin’s advancing years, which could hardly have come as a surprise, there appears to have been no effort to groom a replacement. \u00a0Normally, one would expect Haddin to have hung up the gloves in the ODI format allowing a successor to be found and prepared for test duties, but Australia continued with Haddin right through the World Cup. \u00a0This is nice for Haddin, and his form may have warranted his selection, but with Haddin’s withdrawal<\/a> from the squad due to “personal reasons” Australia now have the NSW second choice keeper (Haddin is No. 1) making debut when 1-0 down in an overseas Ashes. \u00a0Even Australia’s most ardent supporters must agree that this isn’t ideal. \u00a0I can’t help but feel sentiment and Haddin’s popularity with other senior team members kept him in the ODI and test squads at the expense of grooming a successor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, it seems the cautious optimism I displayed in my Ashes Preview post was justified: England have thumped Australia in the first test mainly due to their batsmen being able to withstand the Australian bowling attack and the Australian batsmen … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2602"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2608,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions\/2608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}