I am a fan of the Kangaroos (Australian Cricket Team): Of course after my favorite Pakistani Team. Near me, Aussies were favorites before the beginning of the recently concluded Ashes Series in England. When they landed in England, they had an uncertain start. They lost the Twenty20 International at Rose Bowl against England by 100 runs. However after loosing to Bangladesh in the Tri-Nation One-Day Tournament, they came back and almost won that series. Then they came back strong in the three One-Day Matches Series.
Aussies won the first test match by 250+ runs. Fortunes, fitness, performance and form of several players; everything changed later. Nail-Biting 2-runs win for England at Edgbaston, another cliff-hanger draw in the third test match Old Trafford where Aussies were at seas again, 4th Test at Trent Bridge going to England by three wickets and final test match drawn after a chancy but brave hard-hitting 158 by Pietersen. Indeed one of the most exciting series of my life-time.
I played Cricket for Lashings in England this year and two patriotic Australians Greg Blewett and Damien Fleming were also representing Lashings. The manner in which these Aussies take their Cricket seriously, make them most worthy challengers.
It was quite evident that English Cricket has come a long way and improved considerably, especially after World Cup 2003. English team is indeed good, but they surprised many with exceptionally high-class performance. Their feat is sterling and it becomes incumbent to write something about their run. Let’s review how English Team got the Ashes back after almost nineteen years.
Near me in the Test Match Series, it was Freddie Vs Aussies. Yes: Man-of-the-Series Flintoff was the main difference between the teams. His positive approach and aggressive demeanor inspired other team-mates to improve their game to almost 100%. Didn’t we see batsmen coming in the lower-order like Giles also piling very important runs and much of it was due to the positivism instilled by Freddie. Almost like Ian Botham did in 1980. There also bowlers like Lillee (37 wickets) and Alderman (40 wickets) bowled beautifully like Shane Warne (40 wickets) in this series, however despite such good bowling, Engalnd won that series under Mike Brearley. Outstanding figures of Flintoff at the end of Ashes Series were: Batting - 402 runs 102 highest score and 40.20 per innings average, while Bowling - 194 overs 655 runs given 24 priceless wickets at average of 27.29 runs per wicket.
For English team, there players scored over 400 runs, while none of the Aussies could reach this coveted mark for a five-test match series. It is not easy to replace someone of Graham Thorpe's stature, but find of the batting Pietersen was indeed also the highest scorer in the series with 473 runs; barring unfitness, a flourishing career waits him in the years to come. Trescothick was very consistent with the bat scoring 431 runs and together with Straus, who got 393 runs in the series; they both always gave England a reasonable opening start.
One final kill in the Test Series were the opening spells of Hoggard in the decisive 4th Test Match. He made life pretty uneasy for the batsmen, especially the two most able openers Langer and Hayden. We have seen over the years’ that Aussies openers have established the platform for huge scores, which resulted in comprehensive wins. Hoggard totally baffled Langer and Hayden, as they had no ideas, which will be an in-swinging ball and which one will be leaving them. They were at seas resulting in negative impact on the following batsmen. Due to uncertainty of the swinging deliveries, we saw many LBW decisions.
The guile of Giles in spin bowling was one more reasons for entangles in which Aussie batsmen got into. Especially left-handed batsmen had little clue most of time how to tackle his spinning deliveries. If some left-handed batsman wants to learn how to play crafty spin bowling, then they need to see closely Brian Lara.
Simon Jones came of age and he has now got almost complete command on traditional moving bowling as well as reverse swing bowling. If he remains fit, Simon Jones will soon be considered as the best bowler in the world. We have recently learnt that he is fit for Pakistan series and it will be good to see how he fares on placid sub-continent wickets, where bowlers who can reverse swing in the air have the necessary lethal weapon.
One of the reasons why English pacers bowled beautiful reverse swing is that over the years they have grown up inspecting and learning from legendary reverse swing bowlers. Who are those bowlers: Yes – You are right – Harmison from Shoaib Akhtar (Durham), Freddie from Waseem Akram (Lancashire) and Jones from Waqar and Kasprowicz (Glamorgon). The most important thing about reverse swing is to maintain proper shine and condition of the ball on either sides of the central seam.
As I mentioned, taking good care of the shine of the ball is most imperative for reverse swing: One of the reasons why Aussies were not able to bowl as good as English is that Shane Warne sweats in his palm, making it difficult for the reverse swing not consistent. Even purely batsmen like Trescothick have learnt this from Mushy (Mushtaq Ahmed of then Somerset and now of Sussex and on the verge of another comeback for Pakistan).
Whenever team is down, they look towards their leader to guide them out of misery. Steve Waugh used to do this regularly for Aussies. Ricky did try his best, but eventually Ponting was not able to muster what Waugh used to do with his resilience.
Shane Warne had a dream series as he grabbed 40 wickets at a superb average of 19.92. Next after him was Bret with 20 and McGrath 19 wickets (McGrath sat out in two test matches due to injury). As compared to this, English bowlers took wickets like this: Jones 18, Flintoff 24, Hoggard 16, Harmison 17 and Giles 10. This shows a single-handed bowling performance can not always be good enough. And this was the difference between the two-sides. English team was totally gelled together and Aussies with time started to scatter and get disillusioned, as their opponents once used to become.
They may not do it, but one can not be sure if they will panic like their contestants have done in the past after losing to Aussies. And as Pakistanis prepare for the next month English visit, they must beware of Trescothick, Straus, Harmison, Flintoff, Pietersen, Simon Jones and Giles.
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