Ashes post-mortem

Mon dieu. A team of fruity and frisky Frenchmen could have put up a better fight against the Old Enemy than our so-called Australian XI in the most recent hunt for cricketing's greatest glory. However, congratulations must go to those pasty Poms that have retained it. I know all good Engländer who have read this blog from Britannia - and a certain Cannockman over here - will have sipped their warm lager and munched on their crisps - whatever they are - well into the evening as they celebrated this invective victory. And good on 'em. It's not like they have much to celebrate over there at the moment - midwinter, being forced to sit through another royal wedding soon, plus other associated Anglophobic miscellanies.

More importantly, however, is the reovery of the Australian cricket team from the ashes of an absolute débâcle of a series on home soil - for the first time since '86/87 have the Aussies conceded the tiny urn on their own turf. The fact remains that it is an absloute indictment on our current crop of cricketers - especially soon-to-be-deposed captain Ricky "Swisse" Ponting - that in a series of 5 matches, we lost by at least an innings in 3 matches. Not good enough, I'm afraid.

The Aussie top and middle order was woefully pathetic right through the series, starting in Brisbane and ending a couple months later and a few hundred kilometres south in Sydney. Katich probably played his last Test in Adelaide, not because he got out for a diamond duck, but because he seems to have fatally injured his Achilles - there is no need to snidely suggest running is his Achilles heel, but I'll do so anyway. Tired and stressed Ponting either will come back as captain after his injury to his finger, or not at all. The latter is the wiser option. Clarke better shape up quicksmart or he could find himself deputising once again to the likes of Hussey or Haddin. These two actually seem the only players booked into any Aussie XI side at the moment, with the former averaging 63 with a high score of 195 in Brisbane (he got out stupidly by slogging slackly for a double century) while Haddin is the Woodbridge to Hussey's Woodforde, averaging a fruitful 45 and saving splendidly with the gloves. Marcus North was an absolute joke; as Crikey's Tom Cowie rightly pointed out, no matter "how many of the selector’s family members he may or may not have locked in his basement, you can’t continue to fail on the big stage". And fail he has. The rot set in last summer and the proverbial sword of Damocles has been hanging over his head ever since. However, ironically, bizzarely, surreally, superlatively - anyway you look at it - Marcus North achieved the best bowling analysis (1-47) in the second innings in Brisbane when, as Crikey's Leigh Josey so colourfully imagines it, the Aussie bowlers were simply "Cook Blocked", or maybe had a case of the Trotts. [Scroll down to comments section]. Bravo, sir. (Josey, not North).

There is some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of batting. Usman Khawaja, if nothing else, scored consistently with a cool temperament in his début match in Sydney. However, replacement opener Phillip Hughes certainly lived up to his Jewish roots by making runs at a miserly level, and then getting out cheaply.

Turning to bowling now, and this part of the side thankfully is able to challenge at least a VTCA side. But, that is not to say there are no issues at all. The pre-Ashes media hype focussed on who would be the spin doctor of the Australian side. Would it be Nathan "German" Hauritz? No, how about Xavier "College" Doherty? Try Stephen "Not the Defence Minister" Smith, or, for those playing at home, Michael "I Needa" Beer.

First of all, to intimate that Smith is the number one bowler in Australia, as the selectors seemingly did for the third and fourth Tests, is beyond the pale by a country mile. He is, at best, a batting all-rounder. Alright, Hauri isn't all glamour like Warnie, with his right-arm offbreaks, but at least he can get a 6-fer in a Test match. Against England, too. Onya, Hauri. Doherty's been around the traps long enough, but he still has an apprenticeship to serve. And Beer is too lanky to be a spin bowler. I reckon he's the same size as pasty paceman Chris Tremlett - and one's bowling almost double the speed of the other. See, that's what you can't deny about the English - they're efficient. They probably convicted cricketers and sent them over here for  bowling spin when they had the height to bowl pace, or could at least swing it.     

Right. Onto pace. Shane "It's Elementary" Watson, whose action has been described by Cricket with Balls' Jarrod Kimber as having a "elderly-man-getting-out-of-a-car bowling style", did the job required of the back-up/into-the-wind bowler. Hell, he even picked up a few wickets. His opening batting was equally unequivocal, even if he was involved in two run-outs. Ryan "Scott" Harris, Ben "House of Hilf" Hilfenhaus and Peter Siddle are above rebuke or criticism. Every Aussie's highlight would be Siddle getting the hattrick in Brisbane, and everybody's second highlight would be Tubby Taylor going absolutely ape calling it. Mitchell Johnson's bowling was more erratic than a person with split personality disorder, and for Doug "the Rug" Bollinger to only play in Adelaide is actually a good indication of how good the Aussie bowlers are.

Meanwhile, the English players seemingly were here on a holiday cruise; the retaining of the urn was merely a menial housekeepung matter. Even Strauss, who got out on the third ball of the Ashes series later merged with Alastair Cook and Jonathan "My first name's actually Ian" Trott to form some sort of perverse, inpenetrable, Pommy top-order. Cook was deservedly awarded Man of the Series with 700+ runs, something which English lion and legend Wally Hammond would be proud of. KP was about as intimidating as a person wearing a white cloth going "Boo!" - although his mo, albeit for a fantastic cause, was downright terrifying. Ian "My last name is a noun" Bell improved dramatically, although maybe that's because there was no Warnie on the field to taunt him with "Sherman" jibes, a la the character from American Pie. Paul "Good Old" Collingwood was sent off in a dignified manner from Test cricket, performing roughly the same role as Watson, even though he has the one-day captaincy - more on that in a minute. I like Matt "Not late" Prior as a wicketkeeper - he's cast in the same rugged vein as Rod Marsh, Bert Ironmonger and Graham Manou, rather than Tim Paine and his crew. The pace battery is secure, with the likes of gentle giant Chris Tremlett, swinger James Anderson, and relative veteran Stuart Broad. With Ajmal Shazhad waiting in the wings, the Aussie one-dayers must be scared out of their wits. With the white ball he could do anything. When I saw him in the match against Australia A in Hobart, he was bending it like Beckham.

While England were officially declared the winners of this tour, one cannot help but feel that the real winners were Channel 9 in providing coverage. The status bar at the bottom of the screen broke new ground in display, while the "Earl of Twirl" segment was delightfully surreal - like a Dali painting, with the melting clocks and whatnot. Also, Mark Nicholas has jumped to the head of the queue as Laurie Oakes' heir apparent, with a stunning and politically-incisive interview of Julia Gillard of the Fifth Test re the tragic floods in Queensland and New South Wales.

Today, as a transition from Tests to limited-overs cricket, the English XI played the Prime Minister's XI in Canberra, and the news filtering in from there (anything takes a long time to get from Canberra to civilised society anywhere else) is that England won by 7 wickets with 9 balls remaining, via the Duckworth-Lewis Method. Now, the thing that struck me as odd as I eyed the card was that Paul Collingwood bowled only 3 overs. Fine, s'il vous plait, he's gonna have a bat. But, according to the card, he was due to come in at number 8, after Shazhad and some random named Tredwell. Umm, I'm not sure the captain is utilising his abilities to his full potential. After all, he is the one that makes the selections. But then, that batting list could be academic, given the rain. Chi lo so? as the Italians would say.

So, there you go, my treatment of the recent Ashes series. Unfortunately, from an Australian point of view, the less words said - or written - about its campaign, the better.