Steve Smith, Pat Cummins play starring roles but support cast and script send Ashes urn back home
Batting machine Steve Smith was our superman and fast bowler Pat Cummins our poster boy, but there were so many more facets to Australia’s rousing Ashes success, writes Robert Craddock.
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In decades from now, historians will say this series was simply matter of Steve Smith swooping like Superman to rescue Australia when they were floundering like a damsel in distress.
But it was much more than that.
Clever planning, courageous, unorthodox selections, the forensic analysis of the opposition soft spots, and a willingness by an outstanding bowling attack to put their collective cause ahead of personal egos all played their parts in Australia’s rousing Ashes success.
This win has done much to cleanse the soul and spirit of Australian cricket after the torture of the ball tampering affair in South Africa, especially since one of the heroes was poster boy Pat Cummins, who somehow effortlessly gets the balance between being an intimidating fast bowling predator, yet a wholesome hero to the kids.
But there were many factors.
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THE SMITH EFFECT
OF course Smith was Superman and a stunning contrast to most other batsmen who fumbled around like a group of Clark Kent’s searching for their glasses in the phone box.
Someone said had he played for England they could have won every Test. The truth of it actually stretched further — had he played for neither team, England may have won every Test as well.
But to Australia’s relief he was much like a benefactor with an open cheque book who simply finds out how deeply he has to go to rescue the bottom line and signs off on it.
Significantly, Smith was the last generation of Australian children who preferred backyard cricket to games on phones. If he looks unsurprised by any delivery he faces, it’s probably because he has faced thousands like it in the back yard.
THE CAPE TOWN REDEMPTION
Before banned trio Smith, David Warner and Cam Bancroft were selected in the squad, Australia decided that rather than run away from the tension of Cape Town, they had to flush out the brooding remnants of it.
So the team underwent a type of marriage counselling — individually and in small groups — with the message that if you have a problem slap it on the table.
There were reports on tour of Warner playing golf with some members of the pace attack — that would not have happened in Cape Town after the ball tampering affair.
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THE GAME PLAN
Australia had lost four Ashes tours in row in England by trying to huff and puff their way to victory as they do in Australia.
But the game planners were smart enough to note that many of our fastest men had struggled in England and, with more patience and subtlety required, they invested in a “Death by Suffocation” game plan, sprinkled with the occasional lashing of rib-rattlers.
Give ‘em nothing was the mantra. Turn them blue in the face, just as Australia did when they beat India for a rare victory in India 15 years ago.
Make England’s white ball specialists get twitchy and start feeling for balls outside off-stump.
Jason Roy (edges to wide balls), Joe Root (probing straight balls), and Joe Denly and Rory Burns (short balls) were often fed the sorts of deliveries they liked least.
THE SELECTORS
This was a good series for selectors Trevor Hohns, Greg Chappell and Justin Langer, and their impressively even-tempered skipper Tim Paine, for their gut instincts often trumped conventional wisdom.
No cricket fan in Australia expected both Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc to be omitted from the first Test but Australia did it and won the match.
Last time Australia toured England the selectors chose the squad even before the West Indian tour which preceded it — a mistake they regretted.
This time they waited until five minutes to midnight with a trial match between 22 players in contention a week before the tour.
No squad is perfect. Had the side been chosen again today, Joe Burns would surely replace Bancroft.
But the lateness of the announcement meant that a player like Marnus Labuschagne, fighting for dear life as a Test player after a modest Sheffield Shield season, could revive his chances by playing county cricket.
The other move which we all questioned at the time was leaving Hazlewood out of the World Cup to ensure he was cherry ripe for the Ashes.
Hazlewood bowled in the Ashes like Australia wanted him to bowl — like a fresh man with something to prove.
THE CUMMINS FACTOR
Cummins deserves special praise because while the constantly shuffling deck philosophy worked, there had to be an unflinching anchorman around which everything else revolved.
Cummins, a thoroughbred and a workhorse who can attack and defend at the same time, was that man.
Fit, fast, strong and relentless, he was a hard man to keep out with the old or new ball at 11.05am or 6pm.
It’s just a shame that the Ashes urn does not hold a cold beer because if any fast man deserved a drink from it on Sunday night, it was Cummins.
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