Turgid series must not be repeated

Poor Australian pitches cause slump in run rate Ashes fail to match the Big Bash for excitement

England were beaten – 4-0 to be precise – but not broken, as they have been in two of their past four Ashes series here. The symbol was their captain Joe Root rising from his sick bed to make an unbeaten 50 before succumbing to defeat. It was not men against boys, but it was men against young men in an attritional, often dull series.

England’s batsmen – and none more so than their captain – made the mistake of being impatient and failing to read the situation: when it was time to express themselves and when to restrain. Steve Smith and Shaun Marsh made no such error.

To win an Ashes series in Australia, England’s bowlers have to take 80 wickets. Root’s team managed 55. Only twice – in Brisbane and Melbourne, the two occasions when Stuart Broad backed up James Anderson – did England bowl out Australia in their first innings, the prerequisite for victory.

Australia’s four bowlers took 87 wickets by preying on the patience of England’s upper order and by bouncing out the lower with ruthless dispatch, including the last three wickets of this series.

Jonny Bairstow hung on until after lunch before he was trapped by the reverse swing of Pat Cummins, the leading wicket taker in the series with 23. Moeen Ali, the spinner who has been unable to play spin, had earlier been dismissed for the seventh time this series by Nathan Lyon.

The value of a left-arm bowler was reinforced by Mitchell Starc topping Australia’s bowling averages with a wicket every 44 balls. It is a decade since England had a leftarm pace bowler, and none has ever taken 100 Test wickets, whereas since the Second World War Australia have produced Bill Johnston, Alan Davidson, Bruce Reid, Mitchell Johnson and Starc.

If it was a unique series in that only four bowlers took all of Australia’s wickets, it was a rare one in that the losers were by far the safer fielding side – less athletic but safer in catching, which makes it more of an achievement. England dropped three chances – catchable, not theoretical, chances – and Australia 12.

It speaks particularly well of the wicketkeeper Bairstow that he kept England’s fielding up to the mark – in spite of the PR disaster about butting – and of the fielding coach Paul Collingwood. As we can assume that the worldly Collingwood was England’s sledging coach as well, and England never wilted – the barrage ranging in volume from David Warner’s outbursts to Lyon walking in from cover while the bowler walked back to his mark – a permanent place needs to be found for Collingwood. Trevor Bayliss should remain as head coach – nobody better who is ready to live away from home is on the market – but his management team need a refresh.

And so, above all, do Australia’s pitches, two of them drop-ins, with Perth to be added for the next Ashes series here. Allowances have to be made for England, after coming close at times in the first two Tests, being completely outplayed in the third and fifth Tests, so the series was ever more one-sided. Nevertheless, the actual cricket was hard work and often dull, fundamentally because of the pitches: and this is no subjective impression as the overall run rate was the lowest since 1994-95, and this is the T20 era.

Take away the third Test at the Waca and this series between Australia and England could have been staged in the United Arab Emirates, so little was the bounce and carry. Sydney was not a traditional Sydney pitch, it was like Sharjah; Melbourne was like Abu Dhabi except it failed to turn towards the end; the Gabba could have been Dubai. Hard and fast Australian pitches gener-

ated spectacular cricket. Fast bowlers steamed in – whether England’s or Australia’s – and the batsman fended, and the edge was caught in the slips or flew to third man. The speed of the action was thrilling.

In this series, how many slip catches were taken off pace bowlers? Australia’s fast bowlers tried to have England’s tail-enders fending to short leg for preference, but still: the pitches were so grudging that Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Cummins had seven slip catches held off them, while England’s pace bowlers totalled four. Throw in run-saving fields, negative captaincy by Root when he tried to contain Warner and Smith, instead of looking to dismiss them, and the ugly on-field behaviour by both sides in the first two Tests, and you begin to wonder why on earth would anyone uncommitted to Test cricket go to watch?

Why spend all day watching England score 196 for four on the first day in Brisbane, or Australia score 209 for four off 81 overs in Adelaide or 244 for three off 89 in Melbourne? These were the scoring rates when Test cricket plummeted in popularity in the Fifties and Sixties, and the difference now is that the cricket fan can see many more runs scored in three hours in the Big Bash League, male or female.

By allowing Test grounds to be used for Aussie Rules, so that cricket pitches cannot be watered, mown and rolled in situ during the off season, Cricket Australia’s administrators are taking their sport down the same path as West Indian administrators, who decided around 1990 they wanted slow pitches to make Tests last five days.

Cricket Australia got the crowds rolling in, as before, but novelty had a part in marketing the games: the first day-night Ashes Test in Adelaide, the last Ashes Test at the Waca, the 10th pink Test at the SCG.

Aside from Australia’s excellence and the interest created off the field by Bairstow and Ben Duckett, and underneath the bright veneer, this Ashes series was the most colourless of the 12 I have seen in Australia.