Same old Australia caught out
Cricket is a game of many moods and humours, but rarely the sort of black comedy seen at Swalec Stadium when Shane Watson got out yesterday in a way that surely will occasion the first instance of the word ‘‘ibid’’ in the scorecard’s footnotes.
Played forward, beaten past the inside edge, hit on the pad, given out lbw, referred, but be damned if that ball still wasn’t hitting the stumps, complete with computergenerated death rattle (see Watson, previous).
In the stands, there were cheers and groans, but above them all, howls of laughter. I’ll swear I saw one Australian hand a fistful of banknotes to another, paying out a bet. Watson wasn’t the cause this day.
This first Ashes test probably was lost by the time he came in, and certainly long before he was out an hour-and-a-half later. But he was a symptom.
In sport, to do the same thing over and over and expect a more favourable result is not necessarily the definition of insanity; what, otherwise, is practice? But there is a difference between training your habits and being set in your ways. There is a difference between just in time and too late. There is a difference between lowered eyes and blinkers.
Watson, at 34, is almost exactly the medium age of this greybeard team. They were already an old cricket team when they played England in Australia 18 months ago, but a 5-0 rout required neither explanation nor qualification, and their venerability was in fact one of their charms.
Eighteen months later, they are – surprise, surprise – 18 months older, and in this first test, it showed. Watson was exhibit A, B and C. As David Gower noted with characteristic understatement yesterday: ‘‘I think it’s fair to say that he is an underachiever.’’
To continue to pick him at his age and expect him suddenly to get better would be the definition of insanity. Michael Clarke’s alibi for him after play was to say that he was still working as hard as anyone in the team, as if hard work excused everything and brooked no further correspondence.
Clarke himself looks as stiff at the crease as a man with a chalky back and twangy hamstrings might. He barely moved his feet to Stuart Broad and it was no surprise to see the ball slice to point.
Adam Voges was a feel-good story in the Caribbean, but in this match looked what he was until a couple of months ago, a 35-year-old Sheffield Shield player. Brad Haddin’s magic with the bat has deserted him. Yes, Alastair Cook somehow caught what Haddin might have expected him to duck at short cover, so fiercely did he hit it. But it is characteristic of the declining sportsman that rivals and opponents suddenly seem to have all the luck, until either he or the selectors conclude that it is not luck at all.
Chris Rogers, the oldest player in the team, is on the face of it the exception. He was Australia’s highest scorer in this match, and with his long familiarity of England played the conditions with the most poise. But he alone of the council of elders knows he will not be playing in the next series, because he already has announced his retirement. Effectively, he dared the selectors not to pick him. But they did, because the team was still winning and loyalty softens the hardest selectors’ heart. But loyalty also can blind and it is arguable that instead of picking the man who had handed in his notice, the selectors should have begun auditions for his replacement.
Older players and their foibles and frailties didn’t lose Australia this match, but they did stand in marked contrast to the youth, verve and intent of England. A winner in any sport generally will look more enthusiastic than a loser, and the zest of Mark Wood would enliven even a knitting circle, but this was more than skin deep. As acknowledged by Clarke, England outplayed Australia throughout. Cook was pro-active in his captaincy, his seam bowlers were masterful and spinner Moeen Ali was undaunted when the Australians dashed at him as they said they would. Even in the madness of the headlong rush that was England’s second innings on Saturday, there was method: the forecast was for rain on day five, and England could not leave it until then to consummate victory.
The pitch suited England and irritated Australia. But what did they expect? Adelaide Oval? The Gabba? Australia justify sledging because it is the way they play their cricket. Slow seamers are the way England play their cricket. The answer is discipline, with bat and ball, and patience, and a dash of imagination. Periodically, Cook set Joe Root at a kind of silly third slip, so close that he donned a helmet. He didn’t take a catch there, but he might have at any moment, and that wore at the sangfroid of the Australian batsmen.
So what to do? Cricket is a game for specialists and so does not lend itself to wholesale changes. But for Australia to make no changes would be to harden the idea of a team in a stasis of their own making. Once, Australia would have turned instinctively and without hesitation to youth. Now, players are picked later, preserve themselves better and persevere longer. This, though, can mislead. Warne, McGrath, Waugh, Ponting, Gilchrist, Hayden, Langer, Taylor, Healy and Hussey all retired between 34 and 38, but they were great players who selectors could afford to indulge.