With both teams feeling the heat, some morphing is going on
A STRANGE thing has happened in the Ashes series – Australia and England have morphed into each other.
Only a month ago Australia was the team bristling with weapons of mass destruction after choosing six fast bowlers expected to rain thunderbolts down on England this summer.
And England was expected to curve and swerve through the series with old-timer Jimmy Anderson leading the way.
It would have stunned noone that after the second Test one of the coaches would say “we are here to win the Ashes not to get engaged in a bouncer war’’.
The shock is that, for the first time in Test history, those words have been uttered by an Australian coach – Justin Langer – as Australia recoils from the Jofra Archer assault.
Langer is playing the long game and the smart game here, one true to his conviction to playing without an ego and according to the conditions.
There is no doubt Australia is ripe for a spoonful of mayhem from mad dog fast bowler James Pattinson who has the ability to rough up the English top order.
But Australia has to be careful here. Their macho man tactics have always been overrated in England.
Death by suffocation is Australia’s game plan for this tour. And it is working.
The last thing Australia needs is to scramble its radar by trying to keep up with the Joneses, or the Jofras.
The same frugal plan that has the tourists 1-0 in this series once drove Australia to a historic victory in India in 2004 where Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz barely bowled a bad spell between them.
The instant Australia lost Steve Smith to concussion a sense of gloom was cast over their prospects at Headingley.
But England is the team under more pressure.
They know if they lose one of the last three Tests the Ashes will be gone.
Australia’s top order may be out of form but so too are England’s with Jason Roy averaging 10, Jos Buttler 11, Joe Denly 21 and Joe Root 24.
Openers Cam Bancroft and David Warner have not made a dent this series.