England wins the Ashes
Weekend Desk
There was something a little incongruous about the sprayed champagne, fireworks and glitter that greeted the end of the Oval Test: surely England have never seen an innings loss celebrated so enthusiastically.
The celebration was not for the game, of course, but for the series. As the wag in the crowd remarked during the ceremony, though, it felt like winning the lottery the day your wife left you.
Wouldnt that be like winning the lottery twice? his friend asked. They laughed. There was little pain in this defeat for England and there wont be much consolation in victory for Australia. They came for the Ashes, not encouragement.
Perhaps it would be wrong to read too much into the result of this last Test. As Alastair Cook suggested afterwards, England were drained emotionally after Trent Bridge. And while the intentions were still good, just a little of the intensity had left their performance.
And perhaps it is wrong to contextualise this series. The Ashes matters in its own right. It is an ending in itself. To many cricket followers - those who have packed the grounds this summer but may not make the fairly serious economic sacrifice in non-Ashes years - what comes next will matter little. Questions of quality or concerns about the future wont bother them. England won the Ashes: the rest is an unnecessary detail.
But thats not the world in which we live and thats not the schedule that England face. There is always another tour; another challenge. There is always context to consider and the future to plan. And, despite this victory, England will go to both the UAE and South Africa as underdogs.
That may well be the way they like it. Coming into this summer, there were many who predicted a grim few months for England. New Zealand and Australia both looked strong opposition and it was feared that England would be thrashed in all formats.
To have won four of the seven Tests and secured the Ashes is a triumph, then. Throw in the limited-overs success against New Zealand and England can reflect on a summer of impressive progress. Realistically, they could hardly have fared better.
If that sounds hyperbolic, then consider how the season started. England returned from the Caribbean, where they had been held to a draw in the Test series, to a chaotic situation where their managing director and coach learned of their sacking from the media. They were in chaos.
So this is a fine result. And while they benefited from the absence of Ryan Harris, home conditions, Brad Haddins failure to hold on to a chance offered by Joe Root at Cardiff and some odd Australian selections, they also benefited from some wise and calm coaching, a batting line-up that compensated for its fragility with its depth and a bowling attack that was strong enough to accommodate for one or two men having an off game. It speaks volumes that Cook rates this victory as his finest achievement.
But problems remain; many of them familiar. They came into the summer looking for a new opening batsman and they still are. They came into the summer with questions to answer about both their ability to play spin and their ability to field a quality spin attack. Those questions remain. And for all the potential apparent in Jos Buttlers white-ball batting, he has endured a pretty wretched Ashes against the red ball. England will retain faith, but as the careers of Mark Ramprakash and Graeme Hick showed us, talent alone isnt always enough. For now, Buttler remains an unfulfilled talent at Test level.
He is not the only one of Englands talented young players whose progress has stalled this summer. While Joe Root has confirmed his emergence as a world-class batsman, Gary Ballance - around whom England thought their batting would be built - has been dropped, James Taylor didnt get a look in and Jonny Bairstows Oval performance suggested that the gap between county and international cricket has grown a little larger than is healthy.
Maybe it is Ben Stokes who exemplifies the state of this England team better than anyone. Stokes has, at times this summer, looked a champion player. His century against New Zealand at Lords was a gem of an innings; his six-wicket haul against Australia at Trent Bridge a performance of which a swing bowler as talented as Jimmy Anderson would have been proud. In between times, he has taken a couple of outrageous catches, hit a couple of fine half-centuries and bowled some decent if unrewarded spells.
But he has also, at times, looked like a novice. And what more could we expect? For Stokes, like many of this young England side, is learning his trade. He is 24. He is, like the team he represents, a work in progress.
So while Cooks prediction, even in the moment of triumph, for more dark days in the future may seem oddly negative, it is also realistic. Nobody should think that victory in the Investec Ashes means England are the finished article.
But nor should they ignore his prediction of really good days as well. For there is talent and there is spirit in this side. And, unburdened by expectation, they will travel this winter with their hosts the ones feeling the burden of favouritism. Maybe England will surprise us once more. They are, at least, dangerous opposition and they appear to be enjoying the battle and the learning experience.
As to the immediate future, England are likely to announce their limited-overs squad on Tuesday. Moeen Ali will probably to return to the top of the order - likely alongside Alex Hales - while there is a temptation to rest one or two players. Root is one obvious candidate, but Buttler, Stokes and Mark Wood might also benefit from a physical and mental break. Eoin Morgan, the limited-overs captain, is believed to want to field a full-strength side, but there is almost no point asking Stuart Broad or Jimmy Anderson to lace their boots again this season.
As for those players not involved in the limited-overs squads - the likes of Ian Bell and Alastair Cook - a decision will be made about their workload in the coming days. Cook - with Essex left with little to play for - looks likely to take a decent break but Bell may be tempted to play for Warwickshire on T20 finals day this weekend. Judging by the weariness etched in his face, however, he may be better placed heading on holiday. He looks exhausted and, as the example of Jonathan Trott taught us, sometimes the players enthusiasm for the game needs to be managed for their own good.
Perhaps such issues are details. England have reclaimed the Ashes 18 months after the nadir of Sydney. The squad - the coaches, the players, perhaps everyone involved in English cricket - deserves a moment of quiet satisfaction. The world hurtles on; the next hurdle will come soon enough. Enjoy the champagne while its still cold.
They thought they were the special, chosen team. They were not. They thought numerous immutable laws of time and tide did not necessarily apply to them. They did.
Therein lies the tale of Australia in this Ashes series; a contest they were expected to win and probably should have won, but failed to do so for no other reason so much as the fact they did not grasp the need to respect the prevailing conditions and the nature of their opposition until it was too late. It wasnt so much that they werent good enough - more that they were far too late in recognising what good actually looked like in England.
On the final day of the series, most of Australias bowling came in the form of medium-fast seam-up and swing by Peter Siddle and Mitchell Marsh, both men and method thought largely surplus to requirements at the start. In this final match, most of Australias runs were gained by graft rather than gallop, an approach favoured by far too few of the batsmen at earlier, more critical junctures.
It is useful to remember the mood in which the whole escapade kicked off. In Melbourne, two days after a thumping victory over New Zealand in the World Cup final, the selection chairman Rod Marsh named his squad. Consecutive tours of the West Indies and England were to be tackled by the same 17 players, amid much expectation that England would not dare to prepare green pitches, given the show of strength put on by the Australian pacemen in the World Cup and many other series besides. No-one batted an eyelid about it.
The doughty Ryan Harris was chosen for England in the expectation that he would shrug off chronic knee problems yet again. Shane Watson and Brad Haddin were picked on what they had done in previous Ashes tours as opposed to the past 15 months. Without a first-class match since December, Clarke was touring as captain in the expectation that he would find the thread of his batting in the Caribbean and then follow it to a final prolific tour of England. Fawad Ahmed spoke after Marsh, and expected to get at least one game as the second spinner.
Against a West Indies team distracted by Shivnarine Chanderpauls messy exit before the series and the Caribbean Premier League looming after it, Australia sprinted to what looked like an enormous victory. Yet the batting line-up showed signs of fragility even then, as a pair of lone hands by Adam Voges and Steven Smith covered up other failings. In Jamaica, Jerome Taylor gave a loose approximation of what might be expected from Englands seamers, and found only Smith seemingly able to cope. The bowlers lacked consistency but were not made to pay for it by a horrendously weak West Indian top six.
Flying direct to England from Jamaica, Australian confidence was plain to see. It came through in the public words offered by Smith, Haddin, Watson, Mitchell Starc and even Nathan Lyon, the brio supported by a raft of predictions for a comfortable Australian victory. Even the fact that Australia looked a team unbalanced by age was laughed off, as Clarke referred jovially to the members of Dads Army in the traditional reception at the High Commission. Spirits were high.
But slowly, piece by piece, the walls began to crack. First of all Harris knee finally gave way, so compromised in its effectiveness that he broke his right leg trying to bowl on it. Plan A had called for Harris to play from the start of the series, and now he was gone. But instead of reverting to Siddle, the younger attack used in the West Indies was preferred for Cardiff. Immediately, Clarke found himself struggling to contain the scoreboard against a more proactively styled England. It was to be a battle almost as consuming as Clarkes own fight for runs.
Equally, the batsmen were shown up in Wales by conditions and bowling that challenged their egos and techniques - though by no means as much as Birmingham and Nottingham were to do. There was a dismissive air about it all, as though aggression would win out in any event. David Warner was widely castigated for looking subdued in this Test, when in truth he was actually trying to find a way to play. Others were guilty of not even attempting to adjust, much like David Duvals quip before the infamous 1999 British Open at Carnoustie that his only change for links golf would be to hit the ball a little lower.
The coach Darren Lehmann called Cardiff a minor hiccup, and events at Lords seemed to back up his theory. It was a result celebrated with some gusto, not only by the team but also an extensive retinue of Cricket Australia staff, management, board members and sponsors who made the trip. Yet the vast victory secured off the back of runs from Chris Rogers and Smith took place on the most familiar pitch of the series, and worked ultimately to clarify what England needed to do to win. At the same time it cemented Australian assumptions. Dangerously so.
Edgbastons grassy pitch messed with Australian expectations in the middle, while the non-recall of Haddin after personal leave to be with his daughter scrambled minds in the dressing room. For just about the first time in his tenure, Lehmann and his senior players were at odds over an issue, and both parties were discomforted by it. How much this contributed to the defeat is debatable, but it was a disorienting experience for many. The hope that Haddin would simply come good as he always had in Ashes series was the underlying contributor to the issue, for a problem area was ignored until too late.
Trent Bridge brought still more grass and enormous pressure on the team. They gave one self-consciously up and about performance at a fielding session but as Ricky Ponting has observed, smiles and laughs can convey nervousness just as readily as bitten nails and cold sweats. Knowing the series and possibly their jobs were on the line, the selectors blinked by dropping Mitchell Marsh and including Shaun, while also declining to choose Siddle in conditions crying out for him. An extra batsman made sense in some ways, but Shaun Marshs lack of English expertise was to be more cruelly exposed than most, while the bowlers collective was terminally unbalanced by having neither allrounder nor stock bowler.
Beaten out of sight and having witnessed the least becoming captaincy resignation since that of Kim Hughes more than 30 years before, the chastened tour party retired to Northampton while Clarke convalesced in London. It seemed in the aftermath of such a humiliating Ashes loss a few lessons had actually been learned. The players and selectors engaged in a frank and private exchange on the Wantage Road outfield, and the new leadership duo of Smith and Warner spent much time in conversation with Rod Marsh and Lehmann as the tour match petered out.
What emerged at The Oval was a more humble team, both in composition and application. Helped by the less febrile atmosphere of a dead Test, they performed in the kind of manner they had always been capable of, if only they had realised it was necessary. Warner and Smith took after Rogers, who as Australias Man of the Series had shown the way throughout without always being followed. Mitchell Marsh took after Siddle, and it was the spurned pair that ended the match as Australias best.
As with so much else on this tour, things had not gone according to plan. A new one is in the making.
Australias team performance manager Pat Howard concedes it is a fair question to ask whether the Ashes tourists underestimated England ahead of and during a series Michael Clarkes side were widely expected to win. That they have not, despite dominating the Lords and Oval Tests, will cause Howard to review events closely.
However Howard defended the selectors Rod Marsh and Darren Lehmann for a range of decisions including the omission of Brad Haddin after he withdrew from Lords for personal reasons. He also backed up the choice to give Haddin and Shane Watson only one Test in England before being discarded while ignoring Peter Siddles English expertise until the Ashes urn had gone.
Even so, Howard was unable to say that the players fully understood and accepted the various contentious selection decisions that had been made across the tour. The public utterances of Mitchell Johnson and Chris Rogers, among others, strongly suggested they have not, while on the third evening of the Oval Test Peter Siddle expanded on his own dismay at being left out in conditions he has always thrived in.
Overall, the major question confronting Howard is whether Australias players, coaches, selectors and planners underestimated the difficulty of winning in England and the degree of adaptation required. The shot selection of the batsmen and the composition of the bowling attack seemed to suggest an attitude that the Australian way would prosper, something utterly repudiated by the scores in Birmingham and Nottingham.
Thats a really fair question, Howard said when asked if Australia became complacent about England due to recent success. Last time we won here was 2001. Theres some pretty good teams that have come here that havent won. Weve won the World Cup many times since weve actually been here and won.
You have to play your best against the big teams away. In South Africa weve had some success, because I think its similar conditions, but particularly in the subcontinent and in England we have to adapt and adjust. When we havent done it... we havent got the results.
Ultimately, in the first Test, third Test and fourth Test when we had opportunities to put some good runs on or fight harder or score even a reasonable total we didnt. When you get down to the core of that, that becomes our capability issue - and we didnt turn up.
We definitely have capability. That is why we run Australia A - and we saw some good success from those guys in there - to try and build capability to adapt, and rewarding that adaptability for want of a better term. We dont want to underestimate anyone in foreign conditions, because weve obviously got to be able to turn up and adapt to playing in Chittagong and Dhaka, because weve seen other countries go there and Bangladesh are improving.
Australia have been trying to work on adapting to foreign climes ever since the changes wrought by the Argus review in 2011, and as part of that the Australia A teams touring schedule has been ramped up. They were in England in 2012 and the following year, and this year have been in India. Howard said Australias Ashes pratfalls had to be addressed quickly, given the likelihood of similar conditions in New Zealand next year.
We know were going to get these same wickets in New Zealand come the end of the summer, so theyre going to come again, he said. Were going to have to play better against them, and were going to have to continue to improve. Its about getting opportunities to improve, because in between those two Tests weve got eight in between, and getting yourself prepared during that whole time to be able to focus on different formats and different conditions.
Our adaptability is something we genuinely acknowledge that no matter where we are in the world weve got to get better at, and thats something that all countries need to deal with. The teams that adapt best away are highest in the rankings. Were second in the world, but thats not acceptable and we accept the criticisms that go with it.
Howard denied that Australian cricket now needed a repeat review on the scale of that conducted by Don Argus four years ago, but acknowledged that coaching, support staff and selection all needed to be reviewed, as they were following a heavy defeat against Pakistan in the UAE late last year.
I dont think a wholesale review, but we do need to critically analyse because we need to have done some things better, we didnt adapt well enough, he said. I will have to review and report on this series and work with the team to do that. Considering where we are ranked in the world in all formats , weve won a World Cup, I think youd have to say that the overall system is in good shape, we play well at home but we do not play well enough away and that is where we have to adapt and improve.
Ultimately if the board decides to go for a big review thats fine but the first bit is we review internally we have got some external guys we use to add to that and then we make decisions. Ultimately the next time we come back here is 2019 and thats off the back of a World Cup and we will have to put things in place for that.
Howard, Lehmann, his support staff and the selection panel are all under contracts of various lengths, most concluding in either 2016 or 2017. Most were awarded extensions in the wake of Australias 5-0 home Ashes sweep two summers ago, but Howard must now consider whether different staff and approaches are needed to generate success on shores both familiar and foreign.
Michael Clarke has signed off for the final time as Australias captain with a plea for groundsmen to be granted the freedom to prepare the pitches they see fit, after the conclusion of the equal shortest Ashes series ever. No match reached the fifth day and two barely made it into a third, leaving Clarke to wonder if this was healthy.
Australia have taken pride in the way home pitches are prepared by groundsmen largely independent of national team influence, meaning that each ground has a chance to develop its own consistent characteristics. However the surfaces at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge in particular seemed tailored to the whims of Englands captain Alastair Cook and coach Trevor Bayliss, expressed publicly through the media, resulting in short, one-sided contests after the Australians failed to cope with conditions.
Clarke called for groundsmen to be allowed to dictate their own pitches. Id like to see groundsmen around the world - not just here - have the courage to go with what they think is a good cricket wicket, he said. I think weve seen in the first two Test matches a lot of talk from the media and the commentators . . . about how flat the wickets were, yet those two Test matches were over in four days. One team won and one team lost. The next three are over in two and a half and three days.
I think Test cricket is a five-day battle. I want to see good and fair cricket for both batters and bowlers. I think thats the way the game should be played - and, most importantly, I want to see a winner and a loser. But if the groundsman feels he knows how to produce a good wicket that will be a great battle of Test match cricket then Id like to see them back themselves and go with that and not be persuaded by whats said in the media or what the commentators say.
Looking back over the series, Clarke argued that better cricket was witnessed at Cardiff and Lords than in the ensuring three Tests, even if Australia rebounded from their heavy losses at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge to win on a somewhat more equitable surface at the Oval. He also said that numerous English groundsmen had told him they were unhappy to be compelled to do the bidding of others.
Cardiff and Lords, we did see some really good cricket. Im not saying the wickets were fantastic - dont get me wrong - but weve seen a winner and a loser over four days, Clarke said. I think the past three Test matches have not been that case. People have tickets for today to watch a whole days play and tomorrow, and the same for Edgbaston and Nottingham. The fans of the game deserve to see a really good contest for five days.
I dont know what influence the ECB had . . . and to be honest I dont know what influence they [Cricket Australia] have in Australia either. If I go to the groundsman at the Gabba and say I want it to be a turned like the SCG hell absolutely laugh at me. It might be different around the world. Youre given a role, a responsibility, and a job and you want to be able to do your best at that.
Ive got a feeling, from the conversations Ive had with a lot of the groundsmen in this country, theyre a little bit disappointed they havent been able to do as theyve wanted to do.
Clarke finished his career with 115 Tests, of which 57 were played against either England or India. When asked about this slant in terms of fixtures, Clarke said he wanted to see the game grow as widely as possible, and hoped that administrators would genuinely seek to achieve that in the future.
Id love cricket to be played in every country around the world . . . Id love everybody to have the opportunity to see this great game, he said. In the same breath I cherish how lucky Ive been to be able to play against England as regularly as I have, and play against India and South Africa and Bangladesh, whether its Test, one-day or Twenty20 cricket.
Whatever we can do to grow the game, make the game better, touch a lot of different people around the world, thats what I would like to see. Id like to see cricket played in all countries. He stands at slip directing operations, the ringmaster. He wears a wide-brimmed sun hat. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled down, the collar is always up. His sunglasses are attached, back to front, to the crown of the hat. He has some fidgets: a tug of the material on the shoulder of his shirt, a rub of the hands and then he leans forward with his hands on his knees, ready. Most often he catches anything that flies off the edge of the bat towards him. He is a brilliant fielder. Around the upper part of his left arm is a black band. It is there in memory of Phillip Hughes. He is a sensitive man and Hughes was like a brother.
The man is Michael Clarke, captain of the Australian cricket team, and he is retiring at the end of the match. England hold him in high regard, so much so that Alastair Cook organised a guard of honour when he walked to the wicket on Thursday. This show of respect is double-edged as far as the recipient is concerned. On the one hand it recognises a magnificent career, multiplying the generous applause of the crowd, who are eager to acknowledge a fine opponent. On the other, it plays with emotion and diverts attention from the job at hand. Clarke shook Cooks hand and their brief words reflected the last throes of battles won and lost.
Oops, maybe not. The old fox just brought Steven Smith into the attack and at 6.22pm, with just eight minutes play remaining on Saturday, Cook has been caught at forward short leg. As Geoffrey Boycott said on Channel Five: Brilliant captaincy! But Buttler and Mark Wood survived until the close.
11am Sunday
Leading the Australian cricket team out for perhaps the last time, the captain receives a tremendous reception from a full house. The Oval has said many a goodbye and the English people, along with bands of Australians dressed yellow and green, rise to their feet as one. Clarke shakes the hands of his players before he is warmly embraced by Siddle. It is another baggy green moment, all 11 of them in the cap worn by Bradman and McCabe, Harvey and Benaud, the Chappells, Border and Waugh. At 20 past midday, with England eight down, the rain comes. So he leads the team off, frustrated.
Two hours and 45 minutes later, they are back. It does not take long. Stuart Broad gets a good one from Siddle and Moeen Ali edges to Peter Nevill. The delighted Australians come together as one but this precious moment belongs mainly to Clarke and Chris Rogers. They applaud the Australian supporters and then head for the dressing room. The team line up to give their captain their own guard of honour and then usher Rogers the same way. The England team come down the steps to greet him warmly. It is a reminder of the excellent spirit in which the series has been played. This is a credit to the captains and a far cry from Australia 20 months ago.
The sun is suddenly shining again. Clarke is not out of sight for long. He heads for the Australian supporters, to sign autographs and pose for photographs. They all want a piece of him, roaring their approval, but time is short. Indeed, every microphone on the field is immediately thrust at him. He remains typically calm, dignified and relaxed.
His legacy should not be the result of this last series, but rather the enthusiasm with which he has played and the uninhibited way in which his batting and leadership have entertained its audience all over the world
On the presentation stage with Michael Atherton for Sky TV, he acknowledges the cricket played by England and goes on to say that Smith is just the man for the future of the Australian team. Atherton talks to him for close to five minutes until it is Clarke himself who calls time on the conversation by saying something like: This isnt my stage, Athers, it belongs to Alastair Cook, so Im outta here.
Earlier he had been door-stepped by Ian Ward and now, having left Atherton, he went to Test Match Special, Radio 5 Live, Channel Nine live and Channel Nine news, Cricket Australia, and finally to us at Channel Five. He looked fresher and younger than he had for a year - and goodness what a year this man has had!
I have always enjoyed our interviews. Wondering if I might be blind in my appreciation, I asked Jeff Crowe, the match referee, what the officials made of the Australian captain. Jeff said they were all sad to see him go and added that Clarkes manners, openness and common sense had made him the best of the captains with whom to work.
We said goodbye for the last time in our roles as cricketer and presenter. Soon enough, he will be in a commentary box. I felt sad too. I have been a fan from the first minute I saw him at the wicket for Hampshire and met him after the close of play. His deep love for the game was evident then and has not waned since. His enthusiasm for friendship and life is a reflection of his loyalty to those he trusts and enjoys. His heart is in a good place. This was proved moments later when he went to his family. There were hugs and tears from those who know him best and love him the most.
It is surprising to note that his batting had no obvious signature, other than its sense of adventure. For sure it was easy on the eye, coming as it did with crisp footwork and beautiful timing. Always he was busy: a sportsman in search in opportunity. Clarkes arrival at the wicket invariably coincided with action. It is part of his brilliance as a cricketer that more often than not he changed the nature of the match.
Occasionally the short ball ruffled his feathers and then he would look awkward and introspective. He is no lone ranger there. At other times, he played the short stuff wonderfully well - Flintoff at Lords in 2009; Dale Steyn in Johannesburg in 2009 and Morne Morkel in Cape Town in 2014 are examples that come instantly to mind. His courage and tenacity in the last of those innings, when clearly out of touch, inspired victory in the match and secured the series.
Pictures of him now and then - i.e., in the days of those debut hundreds - tell the story of a career at the highest level and the strain of life led in the spotlight. It is a privileged way to make a living but not an easy one. The position of the Australian cricket captain remains as important to the nation as it has ever done. Clarke has won a tad more than 50% of the Tests he has captained, a record to rank with the best, and has done so without Warne or McGrath on the team sheet. His statesmanship at the passing of Phillip Hughes allowed people to understand him better for it was a raw time that challenged family life, Australian hearts and the games conscience.
He leaves us with memories of thrilling, instinctive cricket and one of the brightest smiles the game has seen. It is a hard act to follow, for the job has not become any easier. Australia must be hugely proud of the manner in which its most recent captain has led the summer game and brought trophies as a matter of course. His legacy should not be the result of this last series, but rather the enthusiasm with which he has played and the uninhibited way in which his batting and leadership have entertained its audience all over the world. Go well, Michael, as Richie Benaud would say.
