Ashes figures haunt Australia’s bowlers

There are lies, damned lies and statistics but what to make of Australian cricket since their darkest hour in South Africa last year?

Australian left-armer Mitchell Starc’s bowling average in the 2017-2018 Ashes series was 23.54.

In the current series against India it is 33.15, a number that includes the fourth test that is being played out in Sydney.

And, in the middle was Australia’s use of sandpaper to change the condition of the ball against South Africa last year.

The implication is obvious, at least if you are English: Australia were manufacturing an unfair advantage with the ball well before the bans handed down to cheats David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft.

Let’s not dance around that theory. It is what many are thinking although they are reluctant to articulate it, at least overtly.

Australia’s cricketers have denied it of course. The disgrace in Cape Town was a one-off.

Warner is holding his counsel. Perhaps one day he will elaborate on those events but perhaps not.

Until then we can turn to statistics to at least give us some guidance. And they lead us on some interesting paths, not least to one conclusion that Starc is simply miserably out of form.

It is not the juiciest outcome but it can’t be discounted.

That’s because Starc’s Ashes v India statistics aren’t that helpful in isolation. We need to look at fellow quicks Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins to try to dig out a bigger picture.

In the case of those two, their averages from England to India worsen, but not to the same degree as Starc’s.

Hazlewood’s bowling average against India is 27.53, only a tick above the 25.9 he recorded against England.

Cummins is bowling at 25.21 against India, compared with 19.66 against England (albeit he only played in two Ashes tests in 2017-2018).

Yes, both are performing slightly worse against an excellent Indian side but the difference isn’t stark, if you excuse the pun.

If ball tampering was rife before the South Africa series, wouldn’t we see an even greater deterioration of bowling averages across the Australian quicks?

But there is a counter to that argument.

Starc’s bowling style meant that he was most likely the beneficiary of any fun and games with the condition of the ball.

In the six months prior to the sandpaper scandal in Cape Town, Starc was synonymous with reverse swing.

Indeed, in the first test of that series in South Africa, Starc was still getting extreme movement with the old ball, something that helped him claim nine wickets in Durban and man of the match honours.

He even told Cricket Australia’s website, cricket.com.au, that it took a group effort to get the ball in the right condition for reverse swing.

Subsequent events haunt such statements, particularly as Starc’s effectiveness has fallen so sharply after the ball-tampering test in Cape Town.

And therein lies the unarguable truth about sandpaper-gate, no matter what you make of Starc’s decline.

The impact of Warner, Smith and Bancroft’s cheating was so destructive that it could reach back in time, retrospectively tarnishing Starc’s Ashes.

Reputations beyond the banned trio’s have tumbled.

A bit like all those English wickets.

Mitchell Starc