Why Australia’s dominant Ashes win should actually have the team worried
Unless you blinked, of course, because you would’ve missed it.
Yes, we love a short, stocky, moustachioed, swashbuckling batsman like Travis Head impertinently dispatching England bowlers to all parts of Optus Stadium.
Yes, we love an ageing fast bowler like Mitchell Starc, who becomes more accurate and consistent as the years go by, delivering family-sized bags of Jaffas to defiant England batsmen who gobbled them up and paid accordingly.
But Tests wrapped up in two days? Meh. The Ashes opener felt less like a Test and like two one-day matches trapped inside a Test. Or four-and-a-half T20 matches inside a Test. If a Test was 140 characters or less, this was it.
It’s easy to lay the blame at the foot of Bazball and the England team’s inability to adapt to the conditions and the state of the game. The criticism from former players and fans has been fierce, and rightfully so. I mean, imagine having to spend a Sunday in Perth with nothing to do.
But …
Amid the euphoria of Head’s matchwinning century, we’ve forgotten that Australia were hardly playing the house down for much of this match. We’ve forgotten they were all out for 132 in the first innings thanks to impatient batting against quality bowling, driving at full-length deliveries when they should have been left alone.
What happened to building an innings? Spending time at the crease? Holding up an end? Has the wallpaper of T20 infected cricket so much that teams just want to get it over and done with so they can hurry back to the golf course?
Maybe I’m alone in hating on this TikTok version of red-ball cricket. According to the CA media release, TV ratings were strong while the online numbers were enormous: “Video views from Australian users were up 166 per cent compared with the first two days of the opening Test of last summer”. Gotta get those clicks, baby.
Crowds were up, too, with more than 101,000 people attending over two days. No mention of the 50,000 fans who bought tickets for day three, although CA boss Todd Greenberg admitted to Code Sports: “We would have preferred to have made some more money on day three, but we’ll take a 1-0 victory and get on with the next Test at the Gabba.”
And we will. We’ll take wins over England whichever way they come, in one day or five.
But the victory shouldn’t disguise the shortcomings of Australia’s performance, especially their batting. The calamity of Usman Khawaja’s back injury and the chaos it caused to the top order deserves greater scrutiny.
We’re being told it’s a stretch to blame the back spasms he suffered as Australia fielded on day one on his 18 holes of golf the day before.
But what about three consecutive days of golf, as per Nine Newspapers? When you are pushing 39 years of age, when you missed your last Sheffield Shield match for Queensland because of a groin injury, is playing 54 holes of golf really the best preparation?
At the very least, the optics of it were dreadful for a player who’s only had one sizeable score – a double century against struggling Sri Lanka – in more than two years.
Khawaja wasn’t allowed to open the batting on Friday because he spent too much time off the field while undergoing treatment on his back. Stand-in skipper Steve Smith was on to it, motioning for him to come back on the field as England fell apart.
A top-order reshuffle ensued and mayhem followed. While Khawaja shouldn’t wear the blame for the reckless batting of his teammates, the top-order collapse trashed the good work from Starc earlier in the day.
Questions have been rightfully asked, not that the answers have been particularly revealing. Back injuries are tricky, Smith said. Starc played golf the day before, too, Greenberg told us. Didn’t affect him too much.
Australia have taken a progressive approach to how their players prepare; the individual seemingly has the final say on when and how he trains, including the famous “optional session” the day before. Khawaja and members of the coaching staff opted for 18 holes.
It’s a far cry from the authoritarian regime of former coach Justin Langer, who drove the players mad with his overbearing methodology before he was ultimately voted off the island.
The players, we’re told, have earned the right to be their own boss. Fair enough: it’s hard to knock a winning team. Success in all formats under captain Pat Cummins suggests the philosophy works. Smith is a great example: he’s permitted to base himself in New York City as long as he’s making runs.
But players can’t be afforded such autonomy when they aren’t making scores. Khawaja has looked cooked against pace bowling for some time. Why he’s been given so much rope at this stage of his career, seemingly picking when and how he’ll exit the team, is a head-scratcher.
Despite Australia’s bulging trophy cabinet, the top order has looked brittle for some time. The batting in the first dig in Perth mirrored the World Test Championship loss to South Africa at Lord’s earlier this year when batsmen threw away their wicket willy nilly.
It’s happened far too often in recent years, requiring Smith or Head or the bowlers to turn the beat around. Without Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, who are both battling injuries this summer, it’s a strategy on which Australia can’t rely for the remainder of the series, no matter how poor England were in the west.
Because I’ve seen this horror movie before. England lose the first Test, they’re roundly dismissed, then come back and win the series, morally or otherwise.
So onwards to the Gabba for a pink-ball Test, starting Thursday, December 4. If it’s not too much to ask of both sides, can they do us a favour and at least get to the end of day three: CA needs the cash and BrisVegas can be a hazardous place on a Saturday night with time on your hands.
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