If Ricky Ponting has not told his players, as they plan another defeat of
South Africa in the forthcoming third Test over a couple of cold beers in
Cape Town, that they are good enough to whitewash England 5-0 this summer,
then he is not the man the world thinks he is.
The Australian captain was the only person in his dressing room who thought
the Adelaide Test of 2006 was winnable after England had enjoyed the run of
the first two days but he was proved right on that occasion. And he could
argue now with more than a hint of justification that his team should be
setting their sights high – very high – when they travel to England to renew
old rivalries.
Ponting’s is a team hungry for success. They are a healthy mixture of old
heads and ambitious newcomers and, after the setbacks late last year in
India and at home to South Africa, they are enjoying the fruits of their
labours in South Africa.
Ponting himself and the two Michaels, Clarke and Hussey, are torchbearers from
a previous age when winning every match was not so much a hope as an
expectation. They are the ones who can pass on this ethic to the next
generation – Phillip Hughes and Mitchell Johnson, both possibly great
players in the making, and Ben Hilfenhaus and Peter Siddle, classic Aussie
battlers both, who leave their last ounces of sweat on the pitch. It has
done no harm that a couple of problem players, Matthew Hayden (out of form)
and Andrew Symonds (out of sorts with the world), have been ushered to the
door. Right now this is a group making a headlong charge for whatever glory
they can find.
And while he savours his team’s triumphs in Johannesburg and Durban, and
watches the South African selectors panic, Ponting can say to his players:
Look at the poor old Poms. They appear more confused than ever.
Racked with doubt. Fearful of when the next batting collapse will strike.
Baffled by their inability to take wickets. They have forgotten how to
finish games, even against a t e a m s u c h a s W e s t I n d i e s ,
themselves ignorant in the art of winning.
Their management is in flux. They like Andy Flower but don’t know if he’s good
enough to turn their fortunes round. If they look elsewhere for a new coach,
an outsider does not have the time to make a difference.
They’ve got superstars who can pick up a cheque but can’t win a game and fast
bowlers who pick up injuries but not wickets. They haven’t got a strike
bowler worth the name. Their best bowler in the Caribbean, Graeme Swann, is
out of cricket for the next six weeks because of elbow surgery. Many of
Andrew Strauss’s players have ignored his plea for them to take on more
responsibility.
It would be hard to argue with this take on the respective states of the two
camps as the thoughts of both turn towards the start of the Ashes in July.
As the dust settles on the Test series in the Caribbean, it seems ever more
incredible that England managed to lose. They imploded under pressure in
Jamaica and then, after winning important tosses on sublime batting pitches
in Antigua and Trinidad, pussy-footed around for so long that they contrived
to run out of time against opponents whose only aim was to hang on for
draws.
It is quite hard for many English supporters to fathom how a nation with a
population of 60 million (England) can lose quite so regularly to one whose
residents barely top 20 million (Australia). That their team should lose to
a region (West Indies) where participation and investment levels run quite
so far behind our own and where organisation is shambolic simply beggars
belief.
But what the West Indies team have rediscovered (thanks in part to Allen
Stanford’s input) is pride and passion. And frankly, anybody who gives this
England team a fight should fancy themselves to come out on top. If one
discounts the pariahs of Pakistan, there is no more dysfunctional cricket
team in the world today.
So Ponting might just sense that if Australia can win the first Test in
Cardiff, England could hit the c a n v a s f a s t e r t h a n a n y
glass-chinned British heavyweight you care to name. The danger for England
is that the Australian team they face are only likely to be stronger than
the one who have just won the series in South Africa. Brett Lee is on the
mend from two broken bones in his landing foot and an illness contracted in
India that saw him lose 10kg. The enforced rest may have done him the world
of good.
He intends to return to action in the Indian Premier League next month and
judging by what Andrew Hilditch, the chairman of Australia’s selectors, has
been saying, they seem to be ready to pick him for the England tour provided
he can prove his fitness.
A new-ball combination of Lee and Johnson would put a premium on England
assembling a solid top three, a point that can only strengthen Michael
Vaughan’s prospects of batting at first wicket down if he can make runs for
Yorkshire, starting in the Middle East this week.
Stuart Clark is also on the come-back trail. Controversially, he is expected
to be named by Kent early this week as their overseas player for the early
weeks of the county season, which would only provide another instance of the
English game helping to prepare the foe ahead of a big battle. Clark has
been out of action after elbow surgery of his own and there is now no
opportunity for him to play four-day cricket in Australia as the season is
ending, but he could gain all the practice he needs in the second division
of the county championship.
There are flaws in the Australian game that well-organised opponents might
exploit. Their fielding is not as good as it was – Brad Had-din can be as
scruffy as Matt Prior – and some of their new players have little experience
of English conditions. This could count against the likes of Siddle and
Hilfenhaus if they play, but again Hughes will be helped out in this regard
through Middlesex signing him from April until June.
Australia also possess no spinner of substance and this ought to cause
problems if they find themselves handling an old ball on good pitches.
Like England, they have struggled to finish off sides, although on the last
day in Durban last week the part-time spin of Marcus North and Simon Katich
conjured four wickets. Australian sides are nothing if not resourceful.
As for England, short of the utterly fanciful notion of them winning the World
Twenty20, they will be going into the Ashes with no sort of momentum behind
them.
There has also been a struggle for power going on among players and
management. The decision to allow several key members of the team to go to
the IPL – if that is what happens – seemingly regardless of their state of
fitness says a lot about who is winning this particular battle.
The management’s signals are merely confusing. They take a tough line with
Steve Harmison as regards his attitude and Samit Patel about his poor
fitness, but then select Ryan Sidebottom when he is apparently carrying
injuries.
The idea that Simon Jones can play in the Ashes is a pipe-dream, which means
the best that can be hoped for in the way of fresh legs into the attack is a
revitalised Sajid Mahmood. If that is the case, the sooner England get him
over from the England Lions party in New Zea-land to West Indies the better.
If Andrew Flintoff goes missing come the Ashes, heaven help James Anderson.
The bottom line is that whatever the available talent, Australian sides tend
to make the most of it, while England make somewhere approaching the least.
THE GREEN MACHINE: AUSTRALIA’S NEW WAVE OF TALENTED TOURISTS
PHILLIP HUGHES
Left-handed opening batsman Age 20 Tests 2 Runs 350 Avg
87.50
The youngest man to wear the Baggy Green for almost 25 years, Hughes is one
reason Australian cricket is feeling good about itself again. He has stepped
up to each new level effortlessly. After 20 first-class games, he has to his
name an average of 62.4 and seven centuries. Brought into the Test team to
replace the retired Matthew Hayden, Hughes scored twin centuries in his
second game in Durban last week, the youngest player to achieve the feat in
Tests. He has an unorthodox technique that involves stepping away to leg.
Middlesex have signed him for the early weeks of the 2009 county season. His
parents are banana farmers in Macksville
MITCHELL JOHNSON
Left-arm medium fast bowler, left-handed batsman Age 27 Tests 20
Runs 536 Avg 28.21 Wkts 90 Avg 27.61
The one frontline bowler among Australia’s present crop who looks certain to
face England this summer. In the past six months this strapping paceman has
proved capable of roughing up the opposition and taking clutches of wickets
by moving the ball either way. By breaking Graeme Smith’s hand twice,
smashing Jacques Kallis on the jaw and hitting a crucial late-order 96 in
the first Test, Johnson, left, has done more than anybody to undermine South
African self-belief. Two Tests against New Zealand and five against South
Africa have brought him an impressive 43 wickets. A former truck driver, he
would give Kevin Pietersen a run for his money in the jewellery-wearing
stakes
MARCUS NORTH
Left-handed middle-order batsman Age 29 Tests 2 Runs 160 Avg
40.00
Has come to Test cricket late, a beneficiary of the problems that have
sidelined Andrew Symonds and Shane Watson, the other pretenders to the No 6
position. Those two could yet return but North, inset, has staked a strong
case for retention, and his part-time off-breaks could help to alleviate
Australia’s spin problems, although a first-class average of 42.7 suggests
he is no more than a support bowler. He was a highly regarded youngster who
spent years underachieving and plying his trade around the English shires.
Gloucestershire last season was his fifth county. When he got his Test
chance he took it, scoring a century in Johannesburg to rescue a difficult
situation
BEN HILFENHAUS
Right-arm fast-medium bowler Age 26 Tests 2 Wkts 5 Avg 46.60
Strongly-built fast bowler from Tasmania who was working part-time on a
building site two years ago. Hilfenhaus, below, had a big season in State
cricket in 2006-07 when his outswingers, delivered at close to 90mph,
brought him 60 wickets at 25.4. His return dipped to 28 at 43.8 the
following season before injury. Played his first Tests in South Africa,
making an important contribution to two victories (his five wickets were
Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy and Mark Boucher).
Gloucestershire have been courting him without success for years. It looks
as though he may be spending the summer in England with the Australians
PETER SIDDLE
Right-arm fast-medium bowler Age 24 Tests 6 Wkts 28 Avg
26.25
Gutsy trier who epitomises the value of perspiration over inspiration, giving
his bowling everything at speeds of almost 90mph. But the effort has come at
a heavy price: his bowling shoulder has been repaired many times and his
left foot has groaned for weeks. Siddle, inset, hopes to be fit for this
week’s Test in Cape Town but he will miss the one-day series. He doesn’t do
much with the ball except stick it in the right area but that has been more
than enough to unsettle the South Africans, who have handed him an
impressive 19 wickets in three Tests. His first chosen sport was competitive
wood-chopping in rural Victoria before he took up baiting visiting players
as a member of the unsavoury Bay 13 crowd at the MCG
