A Quick Ashes Review

I feel duty-bound, if that’s the right word, to review the Ashes a little bit. I didn’t watch all that much of it, hopeful hours here and there, a few 3am wake-ups and some “highlights”.

There was nothing all that unexpected, and England didn’t even play all the badly all the time. They probably had the better of about a quarter to a third of the days, just not the important ones. This is a poor England team, the worst since the 1990s, and actually they remind me a little of the West Indies in the same decade, with a couple of great batsmen and two great bowlers past their prime doing their best to hold it together, with wildly inconsistent results.

I’m not sure England and the ECB are entirely the agents of their own downfall. There has been some bad luck along the way. There seems to be a desperate shortage of batting but the decline of Ian Bell was quicker than could have been expected, James Taylor’s career-ending illness a huge blow for a player who looked ever inch a test batsman, Gary Ballance has turned out worse than could have been imagined, Jennings and Hameed have not come on from last winter.

And bowling-wise, Finn and Roland-Jones being out injured, Woakes with patchy fitness and Broad injured in the autumn (he always needs a long run of fitness to be at his best) were all bad signs.

Then, of course, there is Stokes. I had half a hope is absence might not have been quite the blow others thought, but it really was, and more so. In particular, I think it had a massive effect on Moeen Ali.

Neither Stokes or Ali are actually (quite) true test all-rounders, in terms of getting in the team on either their batting or bowling alone. Stokes is pretty close, but they’re both still a bit inconsistent and their averages are still not really test-class.

But, with them both in the side at 6/7/8, you’ve got potentially four game-changing contributions, and even if only one of them fires (eg 100 for Stokes or 5-for for Ali) that’s worth it. The presence of the one takes the pressure off the other. But without Stokes, and with Woakes not living up to any of his 2016 promise to also be a bit of an all-rounder, there was so much pressure on Ali – the only all-rounder, the only spinner, he needed to perform in some way every game. He did not put in one worthwhile contribution, sadly. One could almost say that the absence of Stokes bled England of four potential contributions per game.

Oddly, the squad selection which I bemoaned at the time didn’t turn out quite as bad as I thought. Vince and Stoneman both started well, didn’t do worse than expectation, but Vince is so blatantly not a test player his selection remains baffling. He’s just revenge on all the idiots complaining about Ian Bell for all those years (see, this is what someone who only ever gets in and makes a pretty 20 is actually like, not someone with 22 test centuries and many match-winning/saving contributions, you bellends, or Bell-enders if you will).

But Malan did pretty well, made a bit of a name for himself (despite what seems a pretty obvious technical flaw of not getting his head in line when he drives outside off), and Overton looks like he’ll be a cricketer if he avoids injury.

I don’t think Anderson and Broad bowled all that poorly most of the time, especially Jimmy, but Australia had four firing bowlers nearly all series, England had, at best 1 and a ½. That area looks like it’s in real trouble. Though the English summer may sugarcoat it again.

As for the batting, there’s a bit more hope – I still wouldn’t give up on Stoneman, but in any case, hopefully Hameed comes good, we’ve found a player in Malan, I think it may be time for Bairstow to go to 5 and give up the keeping, for Foakes or Buttler, I reckon he’s a better batsman than he thinks.
He did keep well in this series well - this is his crossroads - does he want to push on and be a proper test batsman or will he be happy to average under 40 and maintain his place as an all-rounder?

Cook and Root both had incredibly frustrating series in their different ways, but they’re still great players. There just isn't that much point in dropping Cook, and a lot of people talk about Root going 3, but I don't see that much point in that either.

Bayliss could be for the chop – these are just some quite bad results over a period of time. I don’t know if that will do any good, though, or if there's the will. I’d bring back Andy Flower! Bit of steel …

I, of course, think Adil Rashid, a proven big-game player who almost won England his first test, almost saved them his second, has been the best bowler in the pressure cooker of the Big Bash and excelled in the T20 World Cup and Champions Trophy, was going wicket-for-wicket with Jadeja and Ashwin for the first three tests of the 2016 series in India, could have made a valuable contribution, but, you know, his Yorkshire team-mate Root clearly just doesn’t like the cut of his jib or something. You never really know …

What was the main difference between England and Australia? Smith vs Root, the Marshes performing out of their skins, the spinner, the third paceman. I mean, a lot. This is potentially a very good Australian team. They're only one or two players short.

What's the main difference between England in 2018 and, say, 2011? It's that they lose the third day. There were a lot of matches under Strauss where England might be a bit behind the game after a couple of days but you'd feel very confident they'd turn around. Now, they're often quite close after two days and then the game totally drifts away. That's a pretty damning indictment of ... well, everybody.

There’s something pretty rotten going on, England have dropped from pretty regularly a top 3 team for the best part of a decade to, I reckon, despite a few flattering home results, the 6^th or 7^th best test team in the world. Yes, the ODI side has improved, but at what cost? With test matches, there's a certainty in the results from consistently good performances and a solid structure. In ODIs and T20s, you can put all the effort and time in, then everything you built can go wrong in one day (or one over).

Here’s one way of looking at the tour in retrospect …

Hits (versus expectation)

Malan

Overton

Misses (versus expectation)

Ali

Woakes

Root

Cook

Pretty much as expected

Anderson

Bairstow

Broad

Stoneman

Vince

Crane

Curran

Ball