10 reasons why Australia won’t win the Ashes
on November 20th, 2010 at 1:34 amLast night I read an article in Daily Sunday Telegraph ” 10 reasons why Poms won’t win“ I found the article completely self delusional and written by someone sufferring from typical Aussie bigotry.
1 Overrated
They walked around The Oval after their dominant home summer like they were God’s gifts to Wisden. Here’s who they really beat. No one. Nuffies and cheats. England clean-swept the worst team on the planet, Bangladesh, and then won three out of four Tests against rotten Pakistan. Now they’re portrayed as superstars.
This is just plain laughable stuff, the moron who wrote this article was so desperate to prove his point that he just decided to pick and choose his references and completely ignored those which proved him wrong, England won the Ashes last year quite convincingly but the writer instead of referring to the most recent encounters between England and Australia mentions the last series which Australia won.
England in their last five test series have won against West Indies, drew against South Africa, Won against Australia, won against Pakistan and Bangladesh but the fool who wrote that article thinks that they have only beaten Pakistan and Bangladesh. Pakistan drew the series with Australia and had “cheats” not cheated themselves they would have beaten this ordinary looking Australian team quite comprehensively.
2 Kevin Pietersen
He might be growing a moustache for a very good cause but he’s still getting around looking like Dirk Diggler out of Boogie Nights. His most recent Test efforts have been the biggest joke. John Buchanan was right with his assessment of Pietersen. Buchanan was panned because the truth hurt. There’s more than one ‘I’ in Kevin Pietersen and it hurts morale.
Kevin Peiterson is struggling with form but is Micheal Clarke in form? The Australian themselves are not sure what will be their batting line up, Clarke, Hussey and North all are struggling at the moment and their replacements Usman Khawaja and Ferguson have already failed against a second string English attack in the on going side match.
3 No top speedster
Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Steve Finn are respectable quicks. But they lack the fear factor. Every truly great attack has someone pushing 150km/h, like Mitchell Johnson does for Australia. None of the touring fast bowlers are frightening. Away from swing and seam-friendly England, that doesn’t leave them with much.
Mitchel Johnson can just push 150k, he can’t reverse the ball has no accuracy I don’t think that he can scare any English batsman, Ben Hilfenhaus is just a cheap immitation of Asif or McGrath he is no where near those two guys if he was a Pakistani bowler I doubt that he would have ever gotten a chance to make it to the national team. Bollinger is the only one in the current Australian pace battery who is reasonably good, none of the Aussie Pacers can reverse the ball. I don’t think that this Aussie pace battery can frighten their opposition.
Anderson and Broad have improved a lot, Australia out of fear of these two will just make flat tracks in every match, their third pacer Finn can prove to be handful on Australian wickets because of his height and the extra bounce he generates. From what I have seen of the two teams English bowlers are much more skillfull than their Aussie counterparts.
4 Passive captain
Andrew Strauss has to lead by example because his introverted demeanour doesn’t get the blood pumping too much. Only his scores do. He leads with quiet assurance when things are going well. But he comes across as introverted and submissive when things start going pear-shaped.
In other words he leads from the front and doesn’t lose his cool and remains calm in difficult situations. Would you call him passive? If yes then passive is good maybe Ricky should also become passive.
5 No superstars
Pietersen is as good as anyone when he’s in the mood, but he hasn’t been in the mood for a long time. He couldn’t make a hundred against Bangladesh – his 99 was close but no cigar – and Doug Bollinger, Ben Hilfenhaus and Johnson can smell blood. Graeme Swann is the only Englishman to make a world XI right now.England are successful because they know their limitations. Which means there are limitations.
The writer perhaps is living in the past and has forgotten that Mcgrath, Warne, Lee, Gilcrist, and Hayden are no longer in the Australian team, Ponting is just a shadow of his past, Clarke and Hussey are not in form and their is hardly anyother player who deserves to be called a super star.
6 Over-analysis
They’ve faced bowling machines with footage of Australian speedsters running in at them – and still didn’t want to know about Mitchell Johnson. They’ve given themselves three weeks in Australia to acclimatise but haven’t played on pitches like the monster they’ll encounter at the Gabba. Every breath they take is a part of a suffocating plan. There’s no freedom, nothing instinctive or adventurous. Paralysis by over-analysis.
The writer just stopped short of making a claim that every Australian player has two dicks, one in front and th other stuck up in his arse. The English team has seen enough of Johnson they don’t need to study him anymore.
7 No depth
In such a cramped schedule, injuries are bound to hit both camps. England are in serious strife if they lose any of their first XI. There’s a vast gulf between their top-tier players and those on the standby list. Australia can only hope and pray that off-spinner Monty Panesar is called in for Graeme Swann. Australia have eight Test-standard speedsters in the queue.
England has a pretty decent bench better than the Aussies their only concern is their middle order which consistently failed against Pakistan but Pakistan’s bowling was much superior to that of Australia and the conditions in Australia are not going to be as tough as they were in England. Australia doesn’t have even a single quality spinner in their line up England has two, in batting Trott, Strauss, Eoin Morgan, Matt prior even if Pieterson, cook and Bell fail they have enough strength in their batting line up. Where as Australia will have to pick inexperienced players like Usman Khawaja and Ferguson if Clarke, Hussey and North don’t step up their performance.
Australia can have 18 bowlers on the bench but if their class is the same as of their current lot then that would hardly be considered as a plus point.
8 Chokers
This is England we’re talking about. Losing is a tradition. Think soccer World Cups. Think Tim Henman at Wimbledon. Think every cricket tour of Australia since 1986-87. They always arrive talking themselves up, vowing they won’t wilt under the heat and pressure and scrutiny, then wilt under the heat and pressure and scrutiny. They’ve hired a self-described Yips Doctor – because they need one.
A team which hasn’t lost a test series out of the last five that they have played and have won the T20 WC they can hardly be called chokers, one has to be completely self delusional not to see and understand the trend.
9 Warm-ups
Everyone keeps rattling on about England’s perfect preparation. They must be having a laugh. A few of them made runs at Adelaide Oval. It’s like batting on the Hume Highway. Anyone seen the scorecards? Western Australia rolled England for 223. South Australia dismissed them for 288 on the Hume. And Australia A ripped through their top order in Hobart A yesterday. Perfectly prepared? Piffle.
Australia A is struggling to avoid innings defeat at Hobart. They are almost certain to lose the match.
10 Scars
Five of their top six batsmen are the same lot who stumbled and bumbled through the 5-0 loss on England’s last trip to Australia. The scarring is deep and real. Jimmy Anderson’s memories of Australia are all nightmarish. He averaged 45.16. Broad and Finn are yet to play a Test series in Australia. Hard surfaces jarring bones and muscles, oppressive heat – they won’t know what or who has hit them.
Those scars were healed last year when England won the Ashes quite convincingly and also when they defeated Australia in the T20 WC final, if we look at the recent results it’s the Aussie’s who are licking wounds.
Maaz
The weather might help Australia to save this test. If this happened they for sure will have to change their strategy in the third test, the biggest mistake they have made in this series is the preperation of flat tracks their bowling is weak and struggles even more on flat tracks, they can only win a match in this series if they prepare tracks where their bowlers can take 20 wickets. On the batting front they won’t be able change much except Marcus North.
I think their strategy has been very defensive so far in this series, they tried to neutralize Anderson and Broad but ended up neutralizing their own bowlers, they worried too much about the fragility of their own batting line up but ignored how England’s top order struggled against Pakistan.
Australia’s now faces the same problem which Pakistan has been facing for quite some time, mediocrity runs deep into their ranks, they will be forced to make changes but by changing an out of form player by a mediocre bench player will not produce any positive results. I am not sure on the bowling side they have any one left to be tried unless they ask Shaun Tait to make a test comeback and replace Doherty with Hauritz.
Unlike Pakistan they have a good system and an extremely good think tank I don’t think that they will struggle for a long period of time, they know how to develop young players, they will make a strong comeback.
So far England has dominated but if rain rescued Australia in this match the series will still be wide open.
Its complete domination! Never seen them so weak and hopeless before. The Ashes should be secured before Christmas if England win the next Test Match as well which will mean Australia can’t actually regain. With the way things are going, I don’t even see them winning a single Test Match.
Australian bowling attack, one of the worst in the world right now? Last match England were 517/1 and this match they are currently on 551/4. England have batted brilliantly in all fairness, however this is pathetic stuff from Australia. A useless bowling attack, on par with BD. They have lost it completely and it’s only going to get worse with more players retiring soon like Hussey and Punter. From a general perspective, this is good to see, Australia no longer dominating by any stretch of the imagination. It’s gone!
Maaz
But why was he able to say in for just 25 balls? It was a low scoring match Pakistan got off to a good start so it was ok if they asked him to hold one end and score at a reasonable pace without taking much risk.
Did anybody asked him not to score or waste a certain # of deliveries? I guess not.
So it’s his failure that he didn’t understood the match situation and his role in the match.
I know the management is blaming it on the wicket keeper who will get investigated but I think inspite of everything the batting lineup cannot be let go off the hook.
Message from Ghumman via mail after I asked him what went wrong in the semi final against Afghanistan where he scored 11 runs from 25 balls. He has allowed me to share this. I have copied exactly what he replied.
“they made me bat number 3 and tolde bat number 3 and told me that u dont have tol play an shots u just have to stay in and i was doin that but did not helped i could not understand our team strategy tht was nothing.”
The first Ashes test ended in a draw. Neither team walked away with an upper hand. Australia seems to have a serious problem with it’s bowling Johnson, Hillfenhaus, and Doherty proved to be benign. Australia were heavily depnding on Johnson but out of all the bowlers in the match his performance was the worst, he doesn’t lack self belief in my opinion he lacks in skill just pace alone doesn’t make a bowler successful he can’t control the ball and sprays the ball all over the place, he has a major handicap of not being able to swing the old ball as effectively as the bowlers of his stature are supposed to do, usually the lefties are more effective against the right handed batsmen but Johnsons stock ball which naturally angles away from the right handers was also not effective. Doug bollinger will replace him in the next test and in my opinion he will be much more effective than Johnson.
Ben Hillfenahaus was a wrong choice on this wicket, he doesn’t have pace only relies on late swing but this wicket was as flat as they come, Australia is not going to prepare tracks which will help the seam bowlers because they think that English bowlers will take more advantage of such conditions and the current Australian batting is not strong enough to fight England in difficult conditions as it was witnessed in England when they failed against Aamer and Asif.
Doherty might get another chance he didn’t bowl poorly.
Australia if they have to dominate England they will have to prepare wickets which have something for bowlers, their bowlers are limited in skill on flat wickets they become completely harmless unless they prepare tracks where they can bowl out England twice they don’t stand a chance in the series.
The only concern for England would be the performance of Swann he has been the trump card for England in recent years but he was negotiated by Australian batsmen with quite ease.
The performance of Collingwood was quite ordinary he played as an allrounder and failed both with bat and the ball, On a flat track England should go with 5 regular bowlers as they clearly missed a potent fifth bowler this is an area where Australia has an upper hand.
Usually people say that on Flat tracks it doesn’t matter if you play with four regular bowlers as if four can’t do the job the fifth one might also fail but had England gone in the match with two spinners they could have caused a lot more problems for Australia where as Collingwood leaked easy runs and relieved the pressure on Australia.
England has won the morning session, Aussie bowlers looked flat couldn’t extract any help from the pitch. The match seems to be heading towards a draw unless Peter Siddle after lunch decides to repeat his first innings performance.
Bowled really well in the morning session. Unlucky not to get things going our way. Beat the edge several times and there were some close shouts for LBW. Not seen any action since then, but from what I did see England were unlucky in the opening hour and half. Since then it seems like Australia have dictated terms. They are in total command.
Poor captaincy by Strauss he couldn’t apply pressure as effectively as Ponting did against England by taking close in fielders, Swann got hit for a few boundaries on the first day and Strauss changed the field, Australia are scoring at fast pace, Hussey is batting like a machine and Haddin has made it look so easy.
I was wondering we had much better bowlers than England but our batsmen couldn’t handle these English bowlers because they didn’t had the right technique or temprament the conditions were much tougher but still Hussey and Haddin have made the English bowlers look ordinary. It doesn’t look like that they will be able to break this partnership.
Only Anderson looked a bit threatening he was a bit unlucky in not getting a wicket he certainly deserved one the third umpire overturned two decisions and one which was not given by the umpire England couldn’t challenge because they ran out of their appeals.
Hussey and Haddin survived the new ball and have looked rock solid the match has tilted in Australia’s favor they are all set to score 375+.
Maaz
New ball is due today and if England got early wickets then they have a chance, You are right they consistently bowled either too full or too short to Hussey they didn’t varied the angles and just bowled straight and Hussey wasn’t tested, but full marks to him he batted with great confidence and authority.
The match still hangs in the balance but if England conceded a big lead then Australia will wim it comfortably.
A decent day at the office for both sides. I reckon if England can keep the Aussies under 320, they can go on and win this first Test. It is still well within their capabilities. Hussey looks strong, but England have bowled poorly to him. It seems like they have no game plan against him. They need to get him early on day 3 otherwise the lead can become a sizeable one and England will be on the back foot. I would start off with Broad and Anderson against him. The other two don’t look that threatening against him at the moment. Shahzad would have been ideal for this type of wicket with his pace and skiddy action.
I am a big fan of Morgan on his day, however I don’t feel he is up to the mark for Test Cricket. Very tentative pusher at the ball angling away from him outside the off stump, well he was against PK this summer. However, he might be more effective here in Australia as their bowling attack was not the same as Pakistan’s was this summer with A and A operating in partnership.
Mike Hussey saved the day for Australia. He looked in great touch and was scoring freely.
English bowlers are unable to control the Kookabura ball, Anderson got some hold of it today but Finn and Broad are struggling to be more accurate with this ball.
Finn in his first spell was bowling full length hoping to find some swing but in vain he leaked quite a few runs, in his second spell he started bowling back of length with an angle outside the offstump the bounce and the angle clearly troubled the aussie batsmen he got two wickets in that session, in his third spell he tried the same tactics on Hussey who kept on pulling him for boundaries, he couldn’t adjust his length against Hussey.
Broad was difficult to score off but it never looked as if he will take any wickets, he never found the right length. Swann looked dangerous for a brief period but Hussey played him with effortless ease at one stage Swann was just trying to bowl wide outside offstump hoping that Hussey will make a mistake while attempting a cut,
Micheal Clarke, Ponting and North they failed once again, the middle order collapsed for both teams.
The new ball will be due tommorrow if England gets an early break through then no team will be able to get any advantage in the first innings. Seems England came here unprepared, I expected a much better performance from ENglish bowlers.
Maaz
Peter Siddle was excellent but I would blame the spine less English middle order. Wonder why they don’t play Morgan.
Finn is bowling Shit, Anderson is moving the ball around but his line is not on target he will have to make the batsman play.
The Poms are on the back foot in Brisbane. Peter Siddle – the man of the moment. Bowled with pace, aggression and heart to run through the English line up with a splendid spell of bowling. He discovered the perfect length and produced some astonishing deliveries. A special day for him indeed.
A disappointing start for our boys. They talked the talked, but failed to walk and the walk. Will catch up with the highlights shortly and perhaps I will be able to add more then. Definitely Australia’s day.
Australian bowling was mostly below par through out the day, Johnson never looked threatening, Hillfenhaus was too easy to handle never got his length right and was also not very accurate with the line he could have been more effective as he was moving the ball more than any other Aussie bowler.
Xavier Doherty looked good didn’t gave too many runs away but was bowling a bit faster and compromising the spin. Siddle’s first spell was nothing spectecular he was unable to find the right length but he was one bowler whose line was perfect, in the second spell he got the right length and was more successful. It’s difficult to say whether it was quality bowling or shitty batting, I think it was a bit of both as England’s middle order couldn’t control their nerves, this Gabba pitch is not a nightmare for batsmen anymore in fact was an easy paced wicket only the bounce was a bit awkward.
English middle order collapsed due to an excellent spell by Peter Siddle, at one stage England was looking to set a target of 350 but a Siddle’s six wickets skittled them outfor only 260.
Strauss would hope for an early break through tommorrow but seems like Australia will get a big first innings lead.
Siddle’s double strike has rattled England. I wonder why England doesn’t play Morgan and persists with Collingwood.
Pieterson and Cook are hanging on it’s 79/2, so far Shane Watson was the most impressive Australian bowler moved the ball both ways varied his pace and length beautifully was unlucky not to get another wicket when Xavier dropped Cook on his bowling.
There is some turn in the pitch for the spinners the young Aussie spinner Xavier has looked good so far.
So far England is struggling, it’s an easy paced wicket the bowling has mostly been disciplined but nothing spectecular or difficult to handle. England are 50/2. They lost Strauss in the first over huge blow to them he was their man in form, Trott after getting completely settled missed a fuller one from Warne and paid the price. Anything less than 300 will not be a good score on this pitch. Pieterson is looking good so far.
Hoping for a good contest and obviously an English victory. I think most of world cricket is rooting on for us to retain the urn down under as it’s always pleasing to see Aussies on the retreating side of affairs considering their ruthlessness and domination they have given world cricket in their golden and magical era.
What stands out about this series is that these two teams actually pride themselves in their Test Cricket and regularly play it. Their spectators want to see more Test Cricket being played as opposed to us desis and specifically Pakistanis who want to be more involved in ODIs and T20s as Tests are usually a depressing formality for us more often than not, especially in the recent past.
PCB
You are right English media also exaggerate a lot while boosting their team but this article crossed all limits, I mean calling us cheats and Banglas a bunch of nuffies, the spot fixing scandal had no bearing on the results of the match who have we cheated except ourselves? Bangalis have improved a lot.
This Aussie team is not good enough their media and their ex players just try to scare other teams by creating a false image of their team.
Wasim,
Whilst this article may be in favour of Australia, there is no doubt that the English supporters do the same.
There is no media in the world that exaggerates as much success as the British media. They are also quick to scrutinise all others.