Ashes 2011

by Gideon Haigh

  Out in the middle, with an Ashes Test on the line, Australia's attack was bowling as badly as it has all summer – halfway down the pitch, despite its slowness, and without pace or shape. The fielding was flat. The effort was directionless. Captain Michael Clarke bore the expression of a second-hand-car buyer on the point of realising that the most reliable component of his newly acquired automobile was the ashtray.

  For much of the summer, critics have homed in on Australia's batting as the root of all their misfortunes. The bowlers by comparison have gotten off fairly lightly. In fact, while they have had their moments, these have seldom been in combination: Siddle succeeded at Brisbane and Melbourne, Johnson and Harris at Perth, and Hilfenhaus … well, nowhere really. Now they had all taken the day off. At tea, England were 73 for nought in sixteen overs, an unheard-of rate of progress for Strauss and Cook, this summer or any.

  How do teams bowl as badly as this? It cannot have been as though the bowlers were unfamiliar with the conditions. Johnson and Hilfenhaus had earlier made merry with the bat for an hour, and thereby acquired a thorough acquaintance of the wicket.

  Nor can the Australians have been unprepared. Between innings, there was the now familiar sight of the team about to bowl going through token preliminaries. Tim Nielsen and Justin Langer led a slips catching drill. Bowlers ran round cones and heaved medicine balls. Orange fielding mats were deployed, isotonic drinks consumed, and a last few rousing injunctions issued to 'execute skill sets'.

  And then … everyone bowled rubbish, on a pitch without the lift to bang the ball in, and in environs that, thanks to the arena shape the ground has developed so as best to host Australian football, now lack the ground-level breezes that used to abet swing. The third ball of Hilfenhaus's fourth over disappeared over square leg for a contemptuous six, while Johnson's sixth over was his worst since Brisbane – that it cost only seven runs was a tribute to some agile wicketkeeping by Haddin, who to Australia's quickest bowler must sometimes be tempted to take up his stance at short fine leg. Meanwhile, in the equipment driveway beneath the Bradman Stand, the best bowler at the ground was rolling his arm over to the star of, among other things, Nick Fury: Agent of S. H. I. E. L. D. and Shaka Zulu: The Citadel. Shane Warne to David Hasselhoff: this is the stuff of which Big Bash dreams are made.

  In fact, just as the game was disappearing, the Australians did remarkably well to retard England's progress in the extended session after tea. Siddle ran in hard, Hilfenhaus bowled a patient spell from round the wicket, and Johnson claimed a couple of his trademark lightning wickets – he never strikes twice in the same place. The fielding also improved, Usman Khawaja, one of three fielders chasing back to third man, diving headlong to save a boundary. And Clarke captained thoughtfully, chivvying his men along, setting some imaginative fields that took advantage of the slow outfield, and backing his intuitions.

  The choice of Johnson to share the new ball with Hilfenhaus was a sound one, even though it didn't come off, while the introduction of Beer just as the run rate was decelerating was nicely timed, and very nearly brought Australia a seminal wicket. As it was, Beer's bowling of Australia's nineteenth no-ball of the series cost his team a breakthrough for the second time, one that might prove even more crucial than the reprieve that Johnson granted Matt Prior in Melbourne.

  England, who have trespassed not half as often, and who bowled only one no-ball in each of the Tests at the Gabba and Adelaide Oval, have here perhaps stolen another small march on Australia. Their practice sessions are informally umpired, compelling bowlers to pay attention to their front-foot transgressions. Australians in training, as Johnson conceded after play, are not so zealous. 'I still bowl half a foot over in the nets but I don't know how we're going to fix that.' Again with the 'we': what is it with this team's aversity to individual responsibility?

  The recent empowering of umpires to check on the fairness of deliveries even after wickets fall has made no-balls a subtly more culpable offence. A game of inches is turning into a game of centimetres before our eyes – or, to be more exact, before the inhuman eye of the replay. It was enough to cause a 'disturbance affecting the enjoyment of spectators' – if they were Australian, anyway. The roar that followed, however, was a reminder that no error accrues without bestowing benefit elsewhere.

  5 JANUARY 2011

  Day 3

  Close of play: England 1st innings 488–7

  (MJ Prior 54*, TT Bresnan 0*, 141 overs)

  A running gag in the popular video diaries posted by Graeme Swann on the England Cricket Board website is the resemblance of Alastair Cook to Sheriff Woody from Toy Story. Skinny? Check. Well groomed? Check. String coming out of his back. Well … Anyway, the likeness is deepening: Cook keeps starring in sequels.

  Today, too, may have been a rare case of the sequel outdoing the original. Having taken his first guard an hour before tea yesterday, Cook more than batted the clock around, finally falling after tea for 189 in 488 minutes and 342 deliveries, an innings containing 55 singles, 26 twos, 16 fours and judicious leaves outside the off stump beyond number. Cook's Brisbane original was to keep the series alive; this follow-up has killed it, and England's opponents, stone dead. Cook's sixth-wicket partnership of 154 from 282 balls with Ian Bell ensured that only one team can win this Fifth Test, and that the series result will fairly reflect the disparity between the teams.

  When at last Cook was caught in the gully, Watson celebrated by hollering at the heavens, as old-time actors used to shout into the Sydney breakers to improve their vocal projection. It was meant to evoke triumph; it savoured simply of desperation. England a hundred in the lead, Australia being carved up like a Christmas turkey, and he's roaring? Hmmm … perhaps he had just executed his skill set. By the time dim light ended the day at 5.30 p.m., England's lead had more than doubled, and Watson probably had no puff left.

  The day dawned overcast, too, though not perhaps quite so overcast as Australia would have wished. Anderson punched a cover drive for four from Hilfenhaus, then after twenty minutes played down the wrong line at Siddle. England were still a hundred runs in the red, further breaches could have hurt, and, again, little things meant a lot. In Watson's first over and the last ball before drinks, Cook (87) nicked just short of Clarke at second slip. A run shy of his third century for the series, he also turned Beer to Hughes at short leg where he was exonerated by electronic examination – to be fair to the Australians, neither the fielder nor Haddin looked convinced the catch had carried.

  With a flick through mid-wicket and a jogged single in Beer's next over, Cook cantered to three figures, and statisticians enjoyed a beanfeast. He had, for example, now emulated David Gower, John Edrich and Chris Broad, all top-order left-handers coincidentally, in achieving a Test hundred at four Australian venues.

  Particularly sharp eyes noted that he passed 1,000 first-class runs for the tour, a delightfully old-fashioned record for a delightfully old-fashioned cricketer. Above all, perhaps, stattos will have to look hard for a more epic form turnaround. In his first eight innings of last summer in England, Cook eked out 106 runs at an average of 13; in nine innings since, he has made 886 runs at 111.

  Forty-five minutes from lunch, Beer finally obtained his maiden Test wicket, fifty-five deliveries after it first felt within his grasp, when Collingwood holed out down the ground and Hilfenhaus took the catch – this time legitimately. Beer, who goes through his repertoire as mechanically as a cuckoo clock, has failed to convince anyone here that he is a superior spinner to Nathan Hauritz, who continues languishing in internal exile. But at least he was now on the board.

  In his beginning, Beer probably also marked an end for Collingwood: the 34-year-old's foray down the wicket was premeditated; the shot was essayed two metres short of the pitch of the ball; it was a raging against the dying of the light. Collingwood has been a brave, defiant cricketer. Four years ago, he was the one Englishman who consistently gave as good as he got verbally, his coach Duncan Fletcher complaining that team-mates
had left Collingwood to 'take on the whole Australian team'. That role has been made redundant. With 119 in his last ten Test innings, he has become a memento of a kind that a good team, as England deserve to be considered, should be capable of leaving behind.

  As Bell settled in smoothly with Cook, in fact, Australia's effort began to fray. Having bowled only the first three overs of the morning from the Paddington End, Johnson started his second spell from the Randwick End with a ball that barely landed on the cut strip. The frisson he caused at Perth is a distant memory. When he might at a pinch have run Cook (129) out fielding off his own bowling and throwing blind at the non-striker's end, a droll press-box colleague commented that he got closer to the stumps when throwing than bowling. The joke lingered. His arm now looks more suited to throwing a Frisbee, or a plate at a Greek wedding, than to bowling a cricket ball, and the Barmy Army regard him simply as a pretext for their favourite song: 'He bowls to the left/He bowls to the right/That Mitchell Johnson/His bowling is shite.'

  Bell took advantage by finally producing the innings of which he has seemed capable all summer, but for the frailties of England's tail, and his role in ministering to it. From a personal point of view, Bell's was a critical knock. Failure here would have taken the gloss off all his contributions so far: in a year or two, most people would have forgotten that he has looked, day-in, day-out, England's most fluent and attractive batsman. He again looked a treat, driving like a Rolls-Royce, and cutting like a sushi chef. But it was intent that oozed out of him, as well as style. So much intent that he featured in an interlude as peculiar as any in this series – and there have been some peculiar ones.

  When the fourth ball of Watson's seventeenth over passed between Bell's bat and pad, the game dissolved into a now-regrettably familiar tableau. Aleem Dar gave Bell (70) out. Bell walked down the wicket and consulted Prior. Time passed – long enough to wonder how a batsman can not know if he has hit the ball. Finally, Bell requested a referral. Oh well, here we go again …

  The fielders waited. The umpires waited. The batsmen had a drink. The replays rolled, and the Hot Spot revealed … nothing. There was surely an irony here, given the weight Ricky Ponting attached to the Hot Spot in Melbourne: he that lives by the Hot Spot shall die by it also. Then, just as Bell was resuming his innings, the television turned as a deus ex machina to the snickometer, which revealed … a sound. Make of that what you will – many journalists at stumps clearly intended to. In the interim, please enjoy the law of unforeseen consequences: a good umpire in Dar made what was almost certainly a correct decision, only to be undermined by a system intended to improve accuracy in umpiring.

  As it was, Bell officially survived only one chance, a hot caught-and-bowled dropped by Steve Smith, whom Clarke finally remembered was playing in time for him to bowl the 102nd over. Just before 5 p.m., Bell punched the same bowler through cover and gave a skip of delight in completing his first Ashes hundred. That skip became a trampling as Prior, who compiled a brassy 100-minute fifty, helped him add 107 at almost four and a half runs an over. By day's end, the cricket had acquired a dimension not unknown where sequels are concerned: the feeling that one has seen this story before.

  5 JANUARY 2011

  ALASTAIR COOK

  Strokes of Genius

  Before Australia's second innings in Melbourne, Shane Watson was asked what would be his approach to his team's huge first-innings arrears. Without a second thought, Watson revealed his 'plan': he would bat for two and a half days. Never mind that his limit in this series has been about two and a half hours. Later that afternoon, another start was duly wasted.

  Nobody has asked Alastair Cook for his 'plan' this summer. He says 'obviously' a lot in press conferences, but so does everybody else, and in his case it's almost apologetic. The way he plays, batting is obvious, containing no obscurities or hidden subtleties. He is like a skilled expositor with a gift for making complicated ideas sound simple. 'I don't really know what else to say,' he confessed to a television questioner at day's end. His batting this summer has already spoken volumes.

  Of today's 189, it suffices to comment that it broke Australia's spirit, glimpses of which Michael Clarke's team had shown on the second day. It felt like a part of the single continuous innings Cook has played all summer, during which he has batted as though involved in the painting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, no sooner finishing at one end than starting at the other.

  The SCG in the morning was an uncommonly cheerful sight, awash in pink in aid of the McGrath Foundation and its good works in the raising of funds for breast cancer research. Even the statue of Steve Waugh unveiled before play was adorned in a fuschia neckerchief, so that Australia's great champion resembled a Mardi Gras cowboy. For a moment it appeared that Cook would be expected to recommence batting in a pink helmet. In fact, Cook even eschewed the popular pink grip, settling instead for being in the pink of form – and if you were hitting the ball like Cook at the moment, you'd be careful about altering what you had for breakfast every morning lest somehow it interfere with your luck.

  Four years ago on this ground, Cook recalled that comment of Douglas Jardine's about batting against Bill O'Reilly: 'I cut out every shot that got me out and found that I didn't have a shot left.' It was hard to see how he would ever score a run, and precious few of them did he obtain. Now his leaving is part of a bigger, wider, more complete game. 'Knowing where your off stump is' is one of those cricket expressions that sounds perennially mysterious to the uninitiated. After all, doesn't it just sit there alongside the other two?

  Cook the expositor unravels its meaning: by letting balls go that compel no stroke, he draws bowlers into his pads, coaxes them to pitch the ball further up for driving, and generally tires them, little by little, minute by minute. He makes the non-stroke into a kind of stroke, silence into a sort of statement.

  Cook has also turned the press box into a fastness of anorakism. All day could be heard whispered exchanges: 'most runs since'; 'most by a left-hander since'; 'between Sutcliffe and Hammond'; 'just like Gavaskar'; 'level with Lara'. Behind every hard-bitten cricket hack lurks a boy with pencil, a scorebook and a Wisden or two.

  The most flavoursome record of all was the one concerning the length of time that Cook has batted this summer. Read it and reel: with potentially an innings still to go, he has been at the crease for thirty-six hours and eleven minutes, breaking a record of delicious obscurity set forty years ago by John Edrich.

  Tennis has its records of epic five-setters, but only cricket keeps such close tabs on durations, and on hours of occupation, because in order to score one must first survive. In its way, Cook's batting harkens to the origins of cricket, when the roughness of pitches first compelled batsmen to work out ways to defend themselves, and its place in nature, when the format was set by the passage of the day.

  In recent times, Twenty20 has chewed away at that essence of batting, utterly skewing the dynamics of risk and reward. The abbreviated game marches to the drumbeat of the strike rate, which makes a celebrity of Keiron Pollard, and a slowcoach of Michael Clarke. But while the strike rate sounds somehow more scientific, it's a reductive precision, for it pretends that batsmen are only active when actually facing the bowling. In fact, you don't cease to be part of the game at the non-striker's end; you aren't absolved from responsibility, excused from concentration or invulnerable to dismissal. In addition to the 242 scoreless deliveries of Cook's innings, he was a faithful back-up through 351 as a partner. On the measure of a strike rate, these did not exist. Minutes, by contrast, are immediately suggestive. On the rule of thumb that there are 360 in a day's play, you can tell at a glance that Cook has been at the crease for roughly six entire days in this series – almost a third of the total play. In his own self-effacing way, he has utterly hogged the centre.

  Fifteen years ago, The Times' chief cricket correspondent saved a Test match for England against South Africa. Mike Atherton faced 492 balls, although what did this imply other than a lot? Far m
ore evocative is it to recall that he endured for 643 minutes. The image of Atherton's innings that most people recall is not of any shot or even milestone, but the one of him looking up from his haunches and giving his partner Jack Russell a smile – weary, wary but game. Cook, then, has done still more than be the fulcrum of England's exertions in this Ashes series. He has given us a little instruction in cricket – by his deeds, of course, rather than his words.

  6 JANUARY 2011

  Day 4

  Close of play: Australia 2nd innings 213–7

  (SPD Smith 24*, PM Siddle 17*, 67 overs)

  The final day's play in the Ashes of 2010–11 will commence at 10.03 a.m. The reason: a complex recalculation based on residual time lost to rain on the first day which it would be pointless to explain. The same was very nearly true of play on the fourth day of this Fifth Test, where England outclassed Australia in ways it feels tedious and repetitive to enumerate.

  At the close, Australia were set to lose three Tests in a series by an innings for the first time since … well, ever. In the day's first half, their listless attack was relieved of 156 runs in 36.5 overs by England's last three wickets; in the second, they lost seven batsmen in 44 overs either side of tea. Steve Smith and Peter Siddle negotiated an extra half-hour that Andrew Strauss requested, but Australia remain 151 runs short of making their opponents bat again, and England stand on the brink of a 3–1 victory.

  Today's should actually have been the best batting conditions of the match – almost of the series. The SCG pitch had flattened right out, the sky was nearly cloudless, the outfield had quickened, both attacks were weary from five weeks' hard graft, and a crowd of 35,622 was in high humour. England certainly revelled. Having taken toll of some tired Australian bowling late on the third day, Matt Prior positively scampered to the fastest English hundred of the series in 109 balls – the fastest by an Englishman against Australia, in fact, for nearly thirty years.