Aussies dismantle dynasty- building plans
The collapse of the England cricket team against no more than decent opposition has been as surprising as it has been sudden, Mike Atherton says.
Imagine what Australian opening batsman Chris Rogers would have done to England if he hadn’t been short- sighted and colour blind? It was time for the gloating and the jokes to begin.
More than 250,000 attended the Boxing Day test in Melbourne, which is a lot to watch the England team implode, as they did over 31⁄ days of soul- destroying cricket.
It is an apt time to recall James Anderson’s remarks that followed England’s rise to the top of the world test rankings in 2011, when they inflicted on India the kind of moralesapping defeat that is now being inflicted on themselves. Anderson talked of creating a dynasty, a team to last the ages, much as Australia had done in the 1990s and West Indies in the decade before. That seems laughable now.
Since that high watermark, there have been notable successes, a home Ashes win and a series victory in India, but they have been outnumbered by the lows. Series defeats against Pakistan, South Africa and, devastatingly, Australia, and a failure to beat New Zealand away from
The position of England cricket captain Alastair Cook is coming under pressure after his side’s capitulation against Australia in the Ashes series. home, reflect on a team that has not been able to motivate itself to carry on nor to reinvent itself in a different guise. And now it is in a mess.
This is the worst Australia tour of my experience. Oh, there have been some shockers, both as a player and a commentator: days when the team were just as bad, worse even, just as beaten, just as embarrassing in the field as they were at the back end of the game here, but often that was against a great side.
When Andrew Flintoff’s team was whitewashed in 2006- 07, it was an unhappy experience, made more so by the way the team fell apart at the seams off the field, amid drinking and indiscipline, but it was beaten by a side that included Ricky Ponting, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist, and Matthew Hayden.
This is not a great Australia team. In a way that reflects more credit on Michael Clarke and Darren Lehmann, given the way they have turned things around in such a short period of time. They have a top- class seam attack, including a very fast and hostile bowler at the top of his game, but there are holes in the batting and the spinner is a workman- like operator. England are being walloped by a decent, but not great, team.
Although the end result was an eight- wicket hammering, England had their opportunities in Melbourne. About the time that Rogers was stroking Anderson through the covers to bring up an emotional second test hundred on his home ground, 24 hours earlier England were 116 ahead with nine secondinnings wickets in hand. It is astonishing to think that any team can lose from that position within a day’s cricket, especially so on a blameless surface.
Yet England’s batsmen, and tailenders, are completely frazzled now, both by the sight of Mitchell Johnson, man of the match again for his eight- wicket haul ( and not forgetting the brilliant runout of Joe Root), and, more importantly, by the thought of him.
How else to explain the five wickets for Nathan Lyon? As Kevin Pietersen camped down Johnson’s end towards the end of the second innings when Tim Bresnan and Stuart Broad came in, he would have hoped that these half- competent batsmen would have been able to keep out some non- turning offspinners. It was not to be.
Alastair Cook looked shot at the end of a match in which he had batted well at times, captained poorly at others and caught badly. He reaffirmed his desire to hold on to the captaincy for the long term, adding the inevitable rider that it is always within the selectors’ power to remove him from the job, although the alternatives are hard to fathom.
If he has not been impressive on the field, at least he has not run from his duties off it, taking full res- ponsibility for his team’s performances. There is clarity in Cook’s stance: some equal clarity would be welcome from Andy Flower, the team director. Does he want the job in the long term? Does he have the drive and desire to rebuild the team from their present state of collapse?
If he does, all well and good. He is a remarkable man, and has been a remarkable coach and, as debilitating as these defeats will be to him, they will make him a better one in time. He may need to reassess his style of player micro- management, which appears as restricting as it is beneficial.
Sydney to come, then, and it is obvious that further changes will have to be made. Michael Carberry looked like a man moving from good form into bad and is susceptible to the round- the- wicket attack on which Australia have concentrated over the past few innings. At 33, there is little upside to his opening the batting. Joe Root should move back to the position the selectors envisaged for him at the start of the tour, allowing Ian Bell to move to No 3 and giving Gary Ballance an chance at No 5.
The bowling attack will clearly depend on the conditions. After the match, Lehmann, the head coach, opened up the possibilities of Australia playing two spinners in the final test, so it is far too early to talk of Panesar’s limited role in this game leading to his omission in Sydney. Yet Bresnan at the moment neither adds ballast down the order nor offers a threat with the ball. Depending on the conditions, his place should go either to Scott Borthwick or Boyd Rankin.