Australia versus England | The Ashes Cricket Series Since 1877

The hero of the occasion is Freddie Flintoff. The lumbering Lancashireman plundered the Aussie bowling, striking an Ashes record nine sixes for the test. For much of his innings, Flintoff was suffering from a shoulder injury, his left arm hanging limply by his side between deliveries. However, after a painkiller in the lunchbreak, he returned a changed man, flailing the bowling around, and out of, the small Edgbaston ground and then turning around to tear the heart out of Australia’s batting by removing Justin Langer and Ricky Ponting in one emotion-filled over.

It was a feat of superhuman (the English press might say Bothamesque) proportions. Such was the impact of Flintoff’s performance, and so deep the passions it stirred from the vocal Birmingham crowd, the all-rounder should consider himself supremely unlucky if he fails to secure a knighthood (or at least an OBE), in the next Queen’s honours list.

However, in the midst of the jubilation, England must face up to one fact – from what should by every right have been an unloseable position, they almost succumbed to Australia.

Needing 107 to win on the final day, with only two wickets remaining and no recognised batsmen left, Australia had no right to be in the match at all. England should have been inflicting on the visitors exactly the same kind of treatment that the Australians gave to them the week before, rubbing their noses in it and wrapping up a swift victory. Instead, the Aussies came within one edged boundary of victory and were ultimately only defeated by what turned out to be an incorrect caught behind decision.

Had Billy Bowden, the New Zealand umpire, seen that the Harmison delivery that finished the match had struck Kasprowicz’s glove only after he had removed it from the bat, Australia would most probably have gone on to win the test, such was their momentum that morning. It would certainly have been a psychological hammering from which England could never recover - well, not in this series anyway. Instead, England now go into the next test at Old Trafford on an even footing with the world champions.

Still, we shouldn’t be surprised. Right from the very beginning of the match it was obvious that the Edgbaston test was going to be a game for the extraordinary.

Before a ball was even bowled, Australia was denied its most potent weapon. Glenn McGrath, the star of its emphatic first test victory, had slipped on a cricket ball while throwing around a rugby ball during his pre-match warm. The fast bowler had sprained his ankle and was in serious pain.

Moments after McGrath was ruled out of the match because of the injury, an Australian captain still in shock (at least that will be Ponting’s excuse) sent England in, only to have his depleted attack mercilessly thrashed around the park. In the absence of the miserly McGrath, England had taken the game to Australia and Australia had been found wanting in the same way they had been when their human metronome was out of action – during the home series against India in 2003/2004. England’s contempt for what was left of Australia’s attack was so severe that they home side amassed 407 runs in just 79.2 overs – a run rate of 5.12 an over. In reply, Australia managed a relatively pedestrian 308 from 76 overs.

Mind you, in less than two days’ play 21 wickets had been lost and 740 runs scored. It was test cricket on speed – adrenalin-charged, hyperactive, excitable and exciting.

The second innings turned out to be a different affair. The third day’s play began with England on 25 for 1 (a lead of 124), and with Australia having it all to do. It was time for Australia’s bowlers to answer the call, and nip the English rebellion in the bud.

Brett Lee and Shane Warne did exactly that, taking all 10 wickets between them. But of course, Australia didn’t have it all its own way. Deep into England’s innings Flintoff began single-handedly tilting the balance back towards England. Of the 182 the home side scored, he contributed 73 of them from 86 balls, many of which came in a 51-run partnership with Simon Jones for the tenth wicket. By the time Freddy was bowled by Shane Warne, Australia were left with a ground record 282 to win.

The chase started well enough for Australia. The score had motored along to 0/47 and the visitors looked to be cruising until Flintoff, again came into the game again and removed Langer and Ponting in the same over. The Edgaston crowd went from loud to deafening, willing their bowlers on to six more wickets. The afternoon session was lengthened in order to give the home team the chance to mop it up that evening and Harmison removed the in form Clarke with the day’s last ball. However, two Australian wickets remained in tact and the visitors finished the day on 175 for 8. Still, with so many runs to play with, an England win was just a formality.

So the fourth morning began as a walk in the park for England’s attack. But when Warne and Lee showed no intention of playing along, it wasn’t long before it became a nail biter. The Australian bowlers did with the bat what the batsmen were unable to, and fought. Unfortunately for Australia, it was not quite enough. Despite the heroics of Lee and Warne (both of whom like Flintoff,

perform best when it is against the odds), Australia fell two runs short of the England total. The rest, as they say, is history.

England’s victory showed that, when proper pressure was applied to the world champions, cracks did appear. It was just that the Aussies were the ones used to applying it to others rather than being on the receiving end.

In particular, the Australians found it hard to adapt to England’s aggression with the bat. When it came time for the Australians to take to the crease, they approached their innings in much the same manner as the English. The home team’s captain, Michael Vaughan countered this by setting defensive fields to restrict the Australian scoring rate. The most obvious example of the Vaughan philosophy was in the way he approached Matthew Hayden, positioning three (yes, three!) covers and one man close to the pitch on the off side, thereby restricting the Queenslander’s ability to score from the off or cover drives, his two “go to” shots early on in any innings.

In the first innings Hayden holed out first ball he faced – an innocuous delivery from Matthew Hoggard. In the second, he scratched his way to 31 before being caught at slip, driving at a wide delivery from Jones.

Hayden’s lacklustre form and inability to cope with an unorthodox field is part of the reason for Australia’s current less-than-perfect form. Eighteen months ago, he was unstoppable, and regularly set up Australia for massive totals. Then, the massive Queenslander looked like the sixth form bully who had taken over a game of schoolyard cricket played by first formers - insisting the younger boys continue to run in and bowl at him if only to give him the satisfaction of seeing how far he could launch the ball. Now, he bats as though those same players have shot through puberty and matched him in physique. Their bowling seems faster, his long stride forward less convincing, and his innate right to bully the bowling questionable.

When Australia beat England 4-1 at home in the last Ashes series, Hayden topped the Australian batting averages, striking 497 runs at 62. So far this series he has hit just 77 runs at 19.25.

Not that Hayden can be the only player criticised for Australia’s current batting woes.

Damien Martyn should by all rights be Australia’s best batsman because he bats with unmatched ability and a flawless technique. However, he counters his natural talent by putting a relatively low price on his wicket. In the Birmingham test, Martyn engineered his own demise in both innings when it looked as though he removing him with anything less than a bulldozer was impossible. His first innings dismissal, a run out, effected after he chanced the arm of the England captain, was inexcusable. The West Australian jaunted through for a single after striking the ball to Michael Vaughan, only finding the need to break out of his jog when the ball left the England captain’s hand in the direction of the stumps.

Mind you, Martyn may well have been following his captain’s example. The willingness of Ponting to throw away his own wicket in the first innings, by playing a checked sweep off Ashley Giles into the waiting hands of short fine leg, also raised more than a few eyebrows. You couldn’t help but wonder what Steve Waugh or Allan Border, both captains who guarded their stumps every innings like their own life depended on it, would have thought of such generousness.

But Australia’s batting woes pale into insignificance when compared to those of its bowlers. Without McGrath to prop up the attack the pacemen (with the exception of Lee in the second innings) looked decidedly second-rate. In the first innings, Lee was flailed for 111 runs from 17 overs. Kasprowicz and Gillespie conceded another 171 runs between them from their 37. Watching Kasprowicz bowl three second innings overs at Andrew Flintoff was like watching a hunter pursuing a tiger with a popgun. The seamer disappeared for 27 runs before Ponting had seen enough and recalled Lee to the bowling crease.

Who knows how much worse the treatment might have been without Shane Warne tying up one end. The leg-spinner came on in just the fourteenth over in the first innings and the sixth in the second, bowling virtually without a break through both innings. In total, Warne sent down 48.3 of the 131.3 overs England faced, almost two-fifths of the overs bowled by Australia. With McGrath out for at least the next test, the visitor’s bowlers must lift their game, and lift it very quickly.

To this end, the selectors surely cannot overlook including Stuart MacGill in the side at least for thursday’s test. The Old Trafford track will turn and the England team have shown they are vulnerable to MacGill’s tweakers in the past. In the six test he has played against them, the leg spinner has taken 39 wickets at 24.71.

Despite the flaws in the Australian team, England is not without its own problems - particularly those of the psychological kind. Throughout the series, both sides have made a great deal of body language. Glenn McGrath told reporters that at Lord’s, England had the body language betrayed its status as a broken team. Looking at the fielding side as Australia edged closer and closer to their target on Sunday morning, nothing much seemed to have changed.

Fielding at third man, Simon Jones dropped his shoulders and the ball when the visitors were just 15 runs away from the target. Geraint Jones let no less than eight byes spill through his gloves. moreover, the bowling on that final morning was a pale imitation of what the England attack sent down the previous day.

In short, the England team had not convinced anyone they expected to win until Billy Bowden’s finger was raised and Kasprowicz sent on his way.

England’s problems also extend beyond the psychological. The home side’s batting is propped up by relatively few contributors (Trescothick, Pietersen and Fltintoff), and carries more passengers than an ocean cruiser.

The captain is the worst offender of all. In four Ashes innings this summer Vaughan has been clean bowled three times and seems to have a particular problem with the ball that does nothing.

Ian Bell looks well short of test class and must have breathed a bigger sigh of relief than anyone (except Geraint Jones himself) when the wicketkeeper held onto his catch and England held on to win at Edgbaston. The win meant he would keep his place, at least for the Old Trafford test, when his form suggests he has no right to do so.

Andrew Strauss, England’s forgotten South African, has also shown the odd cause for concern. Like many of his countrymen (both of the Northern and Southern hemisphere variety) he appears completely dumbfounded by the subtleties of leg spin. Granted, there was nothing subtle about the two balls Warne dismissed him with in the Edgbaston test. But on both occasions, Strauss had no answer to the sharply turning ball, on both occasion failing to cover his stumps.

Moreover, England’s bowling, while brimming with hostility, still often falls very wide of the mark. With the possible exception of Flintoff, the team lacks a bowler who can exert pressure through sustained periods of accurate bowling. Although Ashley Giles performed well in Edgbaston, he lacks the technique to turn the bowl on all but the most receptive of surfaces, and when there is no swing in the pitch, Hoggard’s lack of menace and flat trajectory render him boundary fodder. There is a compelling reason why Vaughan always throws Hoggard the new ball but is loathed to bring him back into the attack when the pill no longer shines.

Worst of all, England will not again this summer face an Australian team that plays as badly as it did at Edgbaston. McGrath was absent, Ponting gifted the Englishmen first use of the wicket, the quicks sprayed the ball around and the Aussie batsmen found novel ways to remove themselves from the game, often in the face of little or no pressure.

And, notwithstanding every one of those free kicks, England still won by just two miserly runs.

Perhaps that’s why, at the conclusion of the match, a smiling Ricky Ponting announced to disbelieving reporters that Australia could take as many positives from the Edgbaston match as England.

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