Australia prepared for three years... England? Not even three weeks

Meticulous planning paid off for a nation obsessed with Ashes glory, says Tim Wigmore

In August 2015, Australia were left confronting the debris of another failed Ashes campaign in England. Against the moving ball, Australian batsmen resembled drunks blown over in an autumn gale, slumping to 136 all out at Edgbaston and then the ignominy of 60 all out at Trent Bridge to relinquish the Ashes. This was the fourth consecutive Ashes series that Australia had lost in England, and a new nadir.

After that chastening defeat at Trent Bridge, Ricky Ponting was among those to argue that Australia needed to use the Dukes ball to better prepare batsmen for the moving ball. And so, in March 2016, Cricket Australia announced that it would change the ball it used in the Sheffield Shield for half a season each year, from the Kookaburra to the Dukes.

The tweak was made with the away Ashes in mind; of all Test nations at the time, the Dukes ball was used only in England and the West Indies.

The new ball embodied how winning in England had become Australian cricket’s great yearning, just as winning in India – the “final frontier” – had been a generation earlier. Throughout the tumult of the previous three years, the focus upon retaining the urn has remained unstinting.

For England, the World Cup was long identified as the focal point of the summer. For Australia, who had won three World Cups since last triumphing in England, the Ashes was the main event. This curious asymmetry informed both this series and what preceded it.

And so Josh Hazlewood, who opened the bowling when Australia won the 2015 World Cup, was omitted from the squad for this year’s tournament, despite his protestations that he was fit. Instead, he was among those sent on Australia A’s tour of England

during the World Cup. Other Test players – James Pattinson and Peter Siddle – got county contracts to get acquainted with English conditions.

Such planning was aimed at learning from 2015’s mistakes. Then, Australia prepared for the series by playing enfeebled county sides who rested their best bowlers and chose to bowl first to try to eke out the match to four days.

Now they organised an old-style trial at the Rose Bowl, where Marnus Labuschagne’s aptitude for playing the moving ball led to his surprise selection for Australia’s squad. Across the world, home advantage has become more pronounced in Test cricket in recent years. From England to Sri

‘This team had a real effort to put egos aside, roll up sleeves and do the job we required’

Lanka and the United Arab Emirates, Australia had learnt many times that a template to win at home could translate abjectly abroad, with Australian batsmen who thrived in home climes repeatedly flailing when the ball seamed or spun. This time, head coach Justin Langer resolved, would be different. Australia took the radical step of dropping two centurions from the previous Test, Joe Burns and Kurtis Patterson, because of their struggles on the A tour and in the trial match.

It was a microcosm of how Langer, working closely with batting coach Graeme Hick and Dene Hills, the performance analyst, honed Australia’s blueprint for how to win in England. At the core of this was a simple bowling strategy. After the largesse of 2015, when Australia’s two Mitchells, Starc and Johnson, leaked runs, Langer emphasised a relentless line and length and discipline. This time, Starc was omitted from the first three Tests; the economy rate of Australia’s seamers has plummeted from 3.8 an over in 2015 to 2.6 in 2019.

“We’ve known for a while that England sort of play differently to the way we do over here and I think this team’s had a real effort to put their ego aside and roll up your sleeves and do the job that’s required and that’s asked of you rather than worry about how it looks,” captain Tim Paine said. “The brand of cricket we want to play is winning cricket. We need to adapt to situations and conditions that allow us to do that and this group’s done that job superbly.”

While Steve Smith has glowed like Excalibur, his extraordinary run-making – with Labuschagne’s help – covering up other frailties in Australia’s batting, relentless fast bowling excellence has underpinned their success.

Led by Pat Cummins, Australia’s brilliant phalanx of quick bowlers have chiselled England down with a remorselessness. Specific plans have been vindicated; to Joe Root, Australia’s backroom team hatched a plan to bowl full early on, trying to get him to press forward on a full length, reasoning that he is less comfortable when forced to play on the front foot. Mostly, though, Australia have triumphed through simple mastery of line and length.

The way in which Australia have rotated their seamers and managed workloads has been done to ensure that they could bowl with undiminished venom during the most high octane moments.

And so it was apt that the honour of claiming the Ashes-clinching victory fell to Hazlewood, who had been omitted from the first Test to manage his workload. Into his 18th over of the innings, 43rd of the match and 122nd of the series, his threat was undimmed. The delivery that brought triumph – hammering a good length outside off stump, and inviting the ball to deviate off the seam – was Australia’s bowling plan in excelsis.

Victory for a fine but flawed side came from having the best batsman and bowler, but there is a wider truth. Australia have been preparing for this for three years; England had not really been preparing for even three weeks.

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