All over red rover.
All in all a disgraceful series.
Agreed.
My analysis of the series is as follows:
Compared to Ashes series in years gone by, the quality of cricket from both teams this series, on the whole, was below average, as evidenced by all 5 test results being very lop-sided. Neither side batted nor bowled consistently well. Regarding individual performances, the difference across the first four tests (with the series being decided after the 4th) being
1st test: Joe Root dropped on 0, goes on to make a century
2nd test: Steve Smith dropped, goes on to make a double century
3rd test: Andersons 6-fer in the 1st innings, Finn's 6-fer in the 2nd innings
4th test: Broad's 8-fer in the 1st innings, Stokes's 6-fer in the 2nd innings
All in all, England produced the goods with the ball on those 3rd/4th test green-tops when it mattered the most. Those 6-fers from Anderson/Finn/Broad/Stokes on the green-tops really hurt compared to our inconsistent bowling in those conditions, and this sealed our fate. Bringing in Siddle was too little too late for this dead-rubber test, but he should've replaced Starc instead of Hazlewood. I really hope Hazlewood being dropped from this final test doesn't see him on the outer with the selectors, as I feel he has a very bright future and will learn a lot from this Ashes. We need to be looking towards the future in the Steve Smith captaincy era, and can't keep chopping youngsters who've shown a lot of potential, but then are given the axe after a couple of below average matches. Like McGrath, Hazlewood has the line and height to trouble batsmen with bounce, but just needs more time to iron out those inconsistencies. People often forget that before McGrath made a name for himself as Australia's premier fast bowler and stood up to the plate in the absence of Fleming and McDermott during the 1995 tour of West Indies (where we ended their 20yr dominance and became no.1), that McGrath had a shocker and was dropped after the first Ashes test a few months earlier, only to be recalled in the last test at Perth. So, he too was on a learning curve at 24/25yrs of age, which is what Hazlewood is. This is so important, because the selectors won't want to damage the confidence and send mixed-messages to the youth, like they have with Joe Burns not being on the West Indies/Ashes tour if good performances in his 2 tests vs India.
Starc worries me though.....unfortunately looks like an ODI specialist, but cannot translate that form into test cricket. He reminds me of Johnson between post-2009 tour of South Africa and before he was recalled for the 2013/14 home Ashes: too many wide balls spraying all over the place, hence not able to build sustained pressure for the bowler down the other end to work with. We got lucky yesterday and got England's last two wickets to enforce the follow-on, but you cannot start off a day's play with the crap bowling he dished up. Had he been doing that to batsmen like Lara, Kallis and the like, they would've made him look rank amateur.
My turning point of the series: Michael Clarke electing to bat first after winning the toss at Edgbaston. When he arrives back in Australia and reflects over this series, he'll be looking back at that decision as a blunder that - combined with his current form - led to an abrupt downfall. Deja vu of Ponting's decision at the toss at the same ground 10yrs earlier to bowl first, and England piled on 400+ on that first day (the beginning of their fightback in that series). With all the media talk about the slow flat tracks dished up in the first two tests and finally a different pitch produced with the series being 1-all and in the balance, Clarke thought he could outsmart England in their ideal home conditions, bat first and make the statement "See, we can dominate batting first on any pitch, even in conditions tailor-made for you", but it sorely backfired and we were brutally exposed. When Cook won the toss on the same type of pitch and elected to bowl first in the next test at Trent Bridge, the look on Clarke's face afterwards showed he knew trouble was imminent: he was right. Reminds me of our disasterous 2013 tour of India, where we only played one front-line spinner in a test where India played three. Success leaves clues, and we were moronic enough to think we could beat India in their own conditions that they've spent years playing in, with 3 fast bowlers (who are not of the calibre of McGrath/Kasprowicz/Gillespie, when we won over there in 2004) and only one spinner.
I'm going to sleep now, but before I do, regarding the other thread I started "Big player cleanout coming up", it's going to be very interesting to see which squad the selectors take over for the Bangladesh tour. For the sake of Smith's captaincy, we need to perform well over there before our home test series vs New Zealand. There will definitely be several new faces, and I hope we can build that aggression and passion back that we had during the Steve Waugh years: success being a MUST, not a SHOULD.
