Ashes Aftermath Part 2: The Australian Perspective

Bottlers, chokers and unfit to wear the shirt. All words not usually used to describe Australian sportspeople, especially the former all conquering cricketers. They have gone from the ultimate force in World Cricket to now becoming almost a laughing stock. Their reputation over the course of this Ashes Series has gone up in smoke.

                     

It makes horrible reading from the start for players and fans alike. Australia lost the Ashes for the first time at home in 24 years. They weren’t just beaten, they were demolished, almost humiliated in front of their own adoring public, who by the end of the series, had almost deserted them as grounds like Sydney and Melbourne seemingly turned into home matches for England, as they took over. Sometimes not even an Australian in sight.

So where and with whom does the blame lie? It would be easy to blame the coaching staff as seems to be the done thing in sport nowadays. Not this time. The buck stops with the players and in particular with the previously untouchable captain Ricky Ponting. Despite all of his phenomenal achievements in International Cricket, one fact reads clearer than all the others. In the four Ashes Series he has captained, Ponting has lost 3 of them, twice in England and now in his home country.

This news does not bode well for Ponting and the inevitable talk about whether he should give up the test captaincy. At the moment, it looks like he will get to prove himself in the World Cup but if he takes charge of another failure; he surely has to be relieved of the captaincy. However, who will take over from him.

The only obvious replacement is Michael Clarke, but following his equally poor series, there are a lot of people who are against Clarke taking over and having struggled somewhat in the final test, this criticism looks justified. So who else is there? Brad Haddin moved into the vice position role when Clarke was promoted in Ponting’s absence, so perhaps he will get an opportunity to show what he can do.

Mike Hussey is equally accomplished with the bat and is also strong in the field. But would handing the captaincy to Hussey, restrict him due to the extra responsibility. All things considered, Australia’s best option at the moment looks like sticking with Ponting for a bit more time, which may disappoint many of the Australian fans who are searching for a fresh outlook on their team.

However, full responsibility does not lie solely with the captain. There are 10 other players on the team and with both batting and bowling, Australia looked out of sorts to say the least. Hussey was by far and away their best performer out of the specialist batsmen, with wicket keeper Haddin not that far behind. The pair were denied winning the 1^st test for Australia by a remarkable 2^nd innings performance by Alistair Cook, supported by Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott.

But the other batsmen, failed to impress. Simon Katich was injured early on in the series and was replaced by Phillip Hughes, who at times flattered to deceive. Just as it looked like he would put up a big score, a mistake let him down. Shane Watson was better than most, putting up some high scores and frustrating England. But like Hughes he made errors at the wrong time, for example when they managed to run the other out in successive matches. Marcus North was dropped after two tests, whilst Usman Khawaja made his debut in Sydney and proved he is one for the future.

If the batsmen don’t produce it is usually up to the bowlers to get them out of trouble. Apart from a few times, this simply didn’t happen. Only Peter Siddle appeared in every test and was the most consistent bowler for the Aussies. He was devastating in the 1^st test and took a hat trick to put England on the ropes. But like the rest of the Australian team he faded at the end of the series and occasionally managed to put in a better performance with the bat, to suggest he has all rounder potential.

Mitchell Johnson was built up at the start of the series as the spearhead to the Aussie bowling attack. But a poor performance in the 1^st test, caused him to be dropped for the 2^nd test and become the main target for the “Barmy Army’s” abuse. His return in the 3^rd test with both bat and bowl, silenced his critics for a time, and put the series in the balance. But it wasn’t to be and Johnson failed to impress in the next two tests and he returned to his post as the “Barmy Army’s” favourite Australian player.

The other bowlers struggled, spinners Xavier Doherty and Michael Beer failed to justify their selection ahead of Nathan Hauritz. Steve Smith barely got a chance to give Australia a different dimension and this clearly knocked his confidence, despite a gutsy partnership with Siddle in the final test, to delay the inevitable for just a little bit longer.

An injury to Ryan Harris hampered him although he failed to impress as well, whilst Ben Hilfenhaus, was at times dreadful and used as cannon fodder by the in form England batsmen. The so called “Dangerous” Doug Bollinger got one test to impress when he replaced Hilfenhaus in Adelaide but they were swapped again for the 3^rd test in Perth, which the Aussies won in by far their best performance.

So where do Australia go from here with the World Cup coming up. Well it is safe to say that they will struggle to retain the title, and the hopes of the nation will not be very high after their dismal performance in this series. Before all that though, there is the small matter of two Twenty20 internationals and seven One Day Internationals against the old enemy. If they fail to perform in those matches, then they will be slated back home and their confidence will be at an all time low before the trip to India.

This concludes my Ashes blogs and the next blog on Sunday will summarise last weeks FA Cup Third Round and preview the Fourth Round of the competition.