Aussies must hit the stumps or surrender the urn, writes Robert Craddock
It’s been a sweet and mostly sour Test summer for Australian cricket but the contrasting flavours might just hit the sweet spot for Australia’s Ashes challenge, writes Robert Craddock.
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It’s been a sweet and mostly sour Test summer for Australian cricket but the contrasting flavours might just hit the sweet spot for Australia’s Ashes challenge.
The hammering from India was just the smack in the chops Australia needed to sort the wheat from the chaff.
But the two-Test series against Sri Lanka was the confidence restoring soft kill needed just as much to make this team look the world in the eye again.
Had there been no Indian series then Aaron Finch could have opened the batting in England and Shaun Marsh could have played in the middle order and by the time the mistakes were realised the Ashes would be gone.
Australia deserve to have a steam-venting celebration after beating Sri Lanka but once the party stops the time will be right for Australia to be hard on itself, its shortcomings and the areas it must improve to beat England.
It still defies belief that Australia’s fast bowlers could go the entire five-Test summer and not get an lbw even though they rattled the Sri Lankans stumps with regularity in the last Test.
If the lbw statistic does not change in England, expect Australia to lose comfortably.
When Australia last won the Ashes in England in 2001 the team got 14 lbws. Even on the last tour four years ago when it lost the Ashes it still managed eight.
In England, of course, the ball does not bounce as high as it does in Australia so lbws will come more into play.
But it still does not excuse the fact that the old time formula of fast bowlers bowling to hit the top of off stump went astray when it mattered most in Australia this summer.
Somehow Australian batting coach Graeme Hick must use the experience from his many years of batting for Worcester and England to teach his top order the art of letting dangerous balls go.
Opener Marcus Harris is the prime concern.
England’s opening bowlers Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad would have licked their chops in the West Indies watching Harris flash well wide of his body and hook himself like a trout that simply could not resist that fly.
It was poor batting. Harris has been rightfully praised for the energy, spirit and upbeat vibe he has injected into a fragile team craving a heart-beat this summer.
But even when Matthew Hayden publicly cautioned him for going too hard, too wide, too early, Flash Harry could not help himself.
No-one deserved a beer more than captain Tim Paine who took over the Test captaincy midway through a match in South Africa and has been steady and calm all summer.
It’s a shame he won’t win the Allan Border Medal next week because he deserves it for the way he has conducted himself.
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Originally published as Aussies must hit the stumps or surrender the urn, writes Robert Craddock
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