Ashes 2011

by Gideon Haigh

  Three of the victims – Cook, Trott and Pietersen – had brought 962 series runs into the game; the fourth, Collingwood, was the player on whom England has often relied in the past to rally resistance, famously denying Australia victory at Cardiff last year. Australia's decision to field four pacemen plus Watson in this game is still to be vindicated, but mainly because so far one has almost been enough; their lead at the close was a round 200, which in a low-scoring game verges on decisive.

  Logic suggests that there should be no correlation between Johnson's batting and bowling, but Johnson is not a cricketer in thrall to logic. It is not necessarily that when he fires with the bat he succeeds with the ball, but that at his worst he achieves a kind of total anonymity. He came into the Test after six noughts in his previous dozen innings, his only score of note, a 47 at Mohali, preceding his only spell of effect in that time, a five for 64.

  His rousing 62 yesterday, then, might just have been the blue touchpaper needed. In his two overs last night, he generated some suggestive shape away from the left-handers, which continued today into the right-handers, at ever-improving speeds. Many thousands of man-hours of coaching, and thus Cricket Australia dollars, have been ploughed into that shape – the investors should have been gleeful.

  The day began with Australia in listless search of wickets. In the third over of the day, Andrew Strauss (16) drove flat-footed at Harris. At first slip, Shane Watson reeled back like a movie stuntman shot at the OK Corral and somehow managed not to touch the ball at all; Haddin watched transfixed as it ran away to the third-man boundary. This wasn't simply a miss; it was a mockery. In Harris's next over, Strauss tucked away three leg-side boundaries – a hook in the air, a pull along the carpet and a flick off the toes – and the chagrined bowler gave way at the Prindiville Stand End to Johnson.

  His effect was immediate, drawing Cook into an airy drive that Hussey came forward to pouch in the gully – a crucial wicket given the breadth of Cook's bat in the first two Tests. Better was to come. After pushing Trott back with a well-directed bouncer, Johnson caught him on the crease, then beat Pietersen for pace as he shambled across his stumps, the referral system failing to exonerate him.

  When Harris soon after got a ball to hold its line to Strauss, committed to defence, it was abruptly the turn of Australian fielders to be clustering round their bowlers, forming a well-wishing retinue as they retired for a fine-leg breather. Johnson's bouncer to Collingwood was perhaps the ball of the day, the batsman struggling to stretch his frame in order to get in harm's way, then to extract himself from same. He might have been thinking about the same ball when he was trapped lbw, hopelessly late on the downswing, his pads emitting the thud of a rug on a clothesline being struck by a carpet beater.

  Thereafter, England were in retreat – it was just a matter of how organised they could make it. On the scene of his best Test score in Australia, and also the odd grade game during his season eight years ago at University of Western Australia, Bell again looked as good as any batsman in the series. As in Brisbane, though, he perished when he sought to make hay in the company of the tail – it must surely be time for him to graduate to number five or even four.

  Prior played on unluckily, Swann nicked daintily, and England missed the ballast of Broad at number eight as the tail were swept away. Johnson finished with six for 38, gesturing, apparently, in the time-honoured tradition, in the direction of the press box at the Members' End atop the Lillee-Marsh Stand. Unbeknown to Johnson, his media detractors are this year square of the wicket – it was his only loss of direction all day.

  In snapping at Australia's heels, England inflicted some lucky bites. Amid an otherwise inconsistent spell, Finn had Hughes caught at second slip, and Ponting given out on referral caught down the leg side, as at the Gabba, although the evidence was what you would call circumstantial rather than empirical, an observable deflection rather than a noisy nick. When Clarke played on after four rather frenzied boundaries, the last hour loomed as pivotal: Australia claimed it conclusively, Hussey's energy inspiring similar industry from Watson as they moved to a fifty partnership from 65 deliveries.

  There remains a lot of cricket in this game, and some of it is bound to involve batting. Six batsmen have so far made half-centuries, suggesting that it is possible to get in and enjoy the conditions, which are fascinatingly unique: when Prior stabbed Hilfenhaus into the pitch after lunch today, the ball bounced over the bowler's head and picked up pace en route to the boundary – a phenomenon of the hardness of the wicket block and the slight convexity of the outfield. The way Hussey collared Swann late in the day suggests that Australia see him as their biggest threat; there is no ambiguity, at least now, about whom is England's.

  17 DECEMBER 2010

  MITCHELL JOHNSON

  Swings and Roundabouts

  There is a lovely story about Keith Miller playing for New South Wales in the mid-1950s and basking in the afterglow of taking seven for 12 to bowl South Australia out for 26. 'Mr Miller,' asked a reporter. 'Can you tell us why you took seven for 12 today?'

  Miller paused to reflect. 'There are three reasons I took seven for 12 today, son,' he said at last. 'First, I bowled bloody well. Second …' He paused again. 'Second …' He shook his head: 'Awww, ya can forget about the other two.'

  Would that Mitchell Johnson could approach bowling with such ease and insouciance: Australian cricket's number one management challenge would then be a regular world-beater. On the other hand, one would then be deprived of the almost numinous air that surrounds him when everything combines in his favour. As Australia veered back into the Ashes of 2010–11, the difference was Johnson, who afterwards answered questions in that coy, shy country-kid kind of way of his.

  Rather a lot were about sledging. Both teams have been more visibly garrulous in this match, in England's case somewhat pointlessly. But it was Johnson's bowling that really did the talking, and it is of disproportionate significance to his team. That intensity, that athleticism, that elastic snap of his elongated arm swing and explosive turn of speed – they stand out proud in an attack of solid triers.

  Over the past couple of years, swing has been Johnson's faithful frenemy. When he developed it in South Africa last year, he looked like he could take on the world; when it deserted him in England, he seemed bereft. It is easy to forget that in his formative years, he seldom saw the new ball for Queensland, where it was shared among the likes of Andy Bichel, Michael Kasprowicz and Ashley Noffke.

  Instead, Johnson became a cricketer of angles: an angled approach, an angled arm, an angled delivery across the right-hander and into the left-hander. These angles are both benefit and curse, making him unpredictable, but also unreliable, and requiring constant maintenance, which in the middle of a Test series must be like changing a tyre on a moving car.

  If anything was different here to the Johnson of Brisbane, it was that after a week with bowling coach Troy Cooley and conditioning coach Stuart Karppinen, Johnson appeared to be running in both slower and straighter – for him, almost hugging the stumps. His arm came through perhaps a tad higher, and his swing into the right-hander returned – even though with characteristic modesty he later admitted he hadn't actually tried to swing it. Happy the man who swings it when he doesn't mean to.

  The other effect was on Johnson's control, the impact points on his pitch map fitting snugly into a corridor on the stumps and outside off, rather than, as in Brisbane, resembling the result of a particularly wild game of paintball. He probed defences more or less constantly, when he did not punch his way straight through them.

  But who really knows which technical advice did the trick, or whether it did at all? Certainly no Australian bowler is so used to having his ears dinned, by experts and non-experts alike. Some mornings this summer he must have woken and questioned everything. Was his front arm in the right position as he poured his cereal? Was his wrist behind the knife as he buttered his toast? The other day, a newspaper ran an interview with the Toowoomba plum
ber for whom Johnson briefly worked in 2004 while sidelined by injury. Not unkindly, the plumber suggested that Johnson's hips weren't coming through straight. Maybe this is a technique used in plumbing to avoid undue bum crack.

  Perhaps it was the sight of Perth, where Johnson has prospered before; perhaps it was his first-innings runs; perhaps it was the helpful easterly breeze; perhaps it was getting the better of minor skirmishes with Kevin Pietersen and Jimmy Anderson. Johnson is assuredly a confidence cricketer. His problem as far as fans are concerned is that this tends to turn those around him into confidence tricksters, as they go through contortions trying to cover for him when he is bad.

  After his none for 170 in Brisbane, for example, there was a chorus of Australian denials that he had underperformed. 'He didn't have his best game,' said coach Tim Nielsen. 'He didn't bowl as well as he would have liked.' Greg Chappell said that he and his fellow selectors recognised he was 'not in the peak of form'.

  At Adelaide, Johnson was wheeled into a press conference to discuss his omission from the XI accompanied almost by a funeral dirge, only to then remain in the squad. Just before this Test, the story had changed again, Greg Chappell insisting that Johnson had not actually been dropped at all but rested after the Gabba – resting, it seemed, in the same way as a Norwegian Blue parrot is apt to rest. Where Johnson is concerned, Australian cricket surmounts its reputed aversity to cant.

  On days like today, you are compelled to admit that there may be method to such handling of Johnson, because he is the bowler in Australian ranks with the greatest potential to turn matches. His pace is such that batsmen are loath to commit to the front foot against him, and for a bowler with such a tendency to spray it around, he takes a high proportion of unassisted wickets: almost 30 per cent.

  Three lbws and a bowled today reflected both bowling accuracy and batting diffidence. Pushed so far back by sharp bouncers, Trott and Collingwood had nowhere to go when the ball jackknifed back; creeping so far across, Pietersen placed his eyes dangerously outside the line. Once out of position against a bowler of Johnson's velocities, prayer is a batsman's only recourse. The trio didn't have one between them when their pads were struck.

  All the same, it is another indication of the changed nature of Australian cricket that it depends to such a degree on a bowler of humours so variable. If his country is to fight its way back nearer the top of international cricket, Johnson will not only need to bowl as bloody well as Miller, but also to make it an act as simple.

  18 DECEMBER 2010

  Day 3

  Close of play: England 2nd innings 81–5 (JM Anderson 0*, 27 overs)

  Just before 6 p.m. tonight, Ricky Ponting hurried towards the players' pavilion, head down, wringing his left hand, in the company of an Australia trainer. Two nights ago, with Australia under the cosh, the sight would have been cause for further dismay. Great – now the captain's cactus. That'd be right …

  As it is, the situation would have taken the edge from the pain. Ponting had actually just made a bit of a meal of a straightforward chance to second slip by Jonathan Trott off Mitchell Johnson, but in parrying it upwards provided a second chance for Brad Haddin to take. And between them, they had made sure that the Ashes of 2010–11 would go to Melbourne pegged level.

  The last doubt was removed in the following over, the day's last, when Paul Collingwood was pouched at second slip by Ponting's stand-in Steve Smith off Ryan Harris. At the close, Australia were five wickets from victory, England 310 runs away. As his team headed in, Ponting emerged from the shadows to meet them, stretching his good hand out to shake those of his team-mates, who have carried Australia, and perhaps also his captaincy, back from the brink of oblivion.

  Reducing England to 81 for five was well ahead of Australia's expectations when they began bowling the day's last twenty-seven overs after tea. If not quite as exciting as expected, Cameron Sutherland's pitch has been a gift to cricket: the carry is still excellent, with no evidence of variable bounce, and the pace is quick, although not so quick that Watson and Hussey haven't been able to pull off the front foot with impunity. Aggressive fast bowling and sharp catching did the trick: the game now won't last long enough for Australia to feel the lack of a specialist slow bowler.

  It was also a triumph for cumulative pressure. A quite full, very quiet house, refreshed by a pleasant breeze, hung on each ball through the first hour, when Watson and Hussey showed as few signs of budging as at one stage did the sightscreen in front of the Lillee-Marsh Stand. They can put a man on the moon …

  Strauss's thinking was a little static too, involving a 7–2 field with sweepers on both sides to Watson, thinking to slow his progress, on the suspicion, not unfounded, that his innings would peter out of its own accord. But perhaps because Watson was not called upon to bowl his usual allotment of overs in England's first innings, he was more active and alert than usual, the presence of the responsive and nimble Hussey encouraging him to take singles, mixing twenty-six of them among his eleven fours. It also had the effect of taking lbw out of play – quite a concession to a batsman England had already dismissed five times in like manner, and would finally dismiss a sixth.

  Hussey raised the 150 with a sizzling square drive from Anderson, then pulled Tremlett exuberantly in the air in front of square leg. With all Australia's morning forebodings allayed, and Billy Cooper ecumenically trumpeting 'Waltzing Matilda', Watson charged through the 80s with a celebratory cover drive and off drive from consecutive Finn deliveries.

  Fortunately for England, Watson soon after planted his front foot against Tremlett, and was given out by Ray Erasmus. Watson solemnly sought the intervention of the referral system, only to be baffled by the verdict – like someone whose cash card has been swallowed by an ATM, he trailed away feeling himself a helpless victim of a previously trusted technology. The replay clarified with a cruel candour: Watson's bat had snicked his back pad just before the ball had hit his front pad. One wonders if cricketers will one day miss their illusions.

  It was a decidedly mixed day for the referral system. Smith (1) had more luck, joining the queue of batsmen to challenge Billy Doctrove in this match when a ball from Finn emerged from between bat and pad in transit to Strauss at first slip. Showing some presence of mind, Smith referred promptly, with a small shake of the head, whereupon the replay revealed that the delivery had both missed the bat and would also have cleared the stumps. Hussey was then given out lbw to the session's last ball from Tremlett by Erasmus, then given in after a referral, the ball clearing the stumps – bounce here taketh away as well as giveth.

  Perhaps the oddest moment of the day was when Anderson appealed for lbw against Smith (28), referred when Erasmus demurred, and was repudiated on the basis that even though the ball was hitting leg stump, it wasn't hitting it enough – a third as opposed to a half. The decision thereby devolved to Erasmus again, who unsurprisingly stood by his initial judgement.

  Smith survived to prosper, with a little luck, albeit well deserved, helping Hussey add a busy 75 at four runs an over. He has the face of a sitcom mischief-maker, built to break into a snicker, and a similar playfulness to Greg Ritchie, whom Alan Ross once said you expected any minute on the field to start munching a Mars Bar. He hasn't bowled a ball in the game but already looks a better bet than Marcus North and Xavier Doherty put together.

  When Tremlett removed Smith and Haddin in short order, and Johnson drove Collingwood tamely to short cover, England found themselves in better cheer than for a day. Collingwood celebrated with a bouncer wide that would have been a half-volley had it been bowled from the other end, Finn with a bouncer from the opposite end that Harris turned into a wicket with a needless hoick.

  Hussey by this time had a chanceless and tireless thirteenth hundred, a second against England on his home ground. He was helped by some indifferent tactics, Strauss cajoling his bowlers into a predictable diet of short-pitched deliveries, which Hussey never wearied of hooking and pulling. His light feet also nullified Swann,
England's match-winner at Adelaide, who came on at 1.30 p.m. and bowled only five exploratory and expensive overs. At 284 for eight, Swann also dropped Siddle (0) at short cover, an awkward chance to his right, but one that by England's recent standards was eminently catchable: Australia's lead was then 365, an awkward size but by recent Perth benchmarks gettable.

  It added subtly to the pressure when England began their chase of 391 to win circumspectly, and with a heart flutter, Cook having to scamper back after setting off prematurely for a single, bowler Johnson's kick not quite as accurate as in Wellington in March when he caught Tim McIntosh short of his ground. Not that it mattered overmuch, Cook falling in the next over when Harris bent one back into him which would have hit leg stump had it not been impeded by the batsman's back pad. Having escaped Johnson yesterday, Strauss was not so lucky today, caught between wind and water, playing and not, as the ball held its line on off stump.

  Had England gone into the close with two wickets down, they might just have slept optimistically. Pietersen was certainly of that mind, resisting sternly and strokelessly for almost forty minutes and only three singles, only to perish to a wretched shot, defending with the face of the bat towards cover as he walked forward – a cardinal sin at the WACA. It was Hilfenhaus's first Test wicket for 471 deliveries, since his dismissal of Strauss in the first over of the series, although by the close this was mainly a curiosity.

  Collingwood kicked the ground angrily as he trailed off, not surprisingly as the ball before he had had a chance to get off strike but been turned back by night watchman Anderson – when you're not hot in this series, you are very cold indeed. Just ask Ricky Ponting.