Job´ber`nowl`-ism

Ashes 2005 continues to surprise you. It digs deeper into its reserves to produce cricket of even greater beauty and results which would take some beating to improve upon. The Lord’s test showed sparks of what was in store before petering out into a draw. But a rejuvenated England came back strongly at Edgbaston and controlled play almost throughout the test. Only a spirited fight back by the Aussie tail created a cliffhanger out of a test which had England written all over it. The English superiority continued at Old Trafford too. But what the Australian batting frontline could not do was achieved by Warne and company in the first innings and captain Ponting with the spirited help of the same tail. It was this spirit which snatched the match away from the eager hands of Vaughan. He tried all the tricks at his command and he had many. But the indomitable spirit did not allow him to succeed. They were determined not to lose.

England is on a high, no doubt. It never had it so good in an Ashes series in the last two decades. Their batting has done exceptionally well against the strong Aussie bowling. The only bowler they have not been able to handle satisfactorily is Shane Warne. McGrath who did exceedingly well in the first test, was a shadow of himself at Manchester, after the injury. English fast bowling proved that they have the firepower to dismiss the Australians twice in five days, the first requisite in a test match. That they could just manage it at Lord’s and just failed to do so in the last test shows that their rivals are just down but not out.

Australians are never out. They will get back into the game if an iota of doubt creeps into the minds of the opposition. Or they would create that doubt. Look at the last day’s play of the third test. Australia was primarily trying to save the test. But never on England’s terms. They left more balls that usual, blocked a few more, but the scorer never was threatened with unemployment. He was kept busy by the Aussies who simply refused to surrender. Remember, they scored about 350 runs on a fifth day’s pitch which showed signs of treachery. And when the most patriotic would have given his right hand for an honorable draw! But look at the way the Aussie tail responded to the vagaries of the pitch! Warne got a snorter from Harmison. He just wiggled out of harm’s way, just. Then came a Yorker length ball and Warne simply put his front foot forward and went the ball like a bullet to the square cover ropes! Though the dominant theme of Australian batting was saving the test, I suspect they never had thrown the hopes of a victory out of the window. They fondly, if perhaps with a childlike sense of security, nursed the dream of pulling the chestnuts out of fire first and counter attacking when they thought the door was ajar ever so slightly. And never for once was a spell which told you they had thrown in the towel. They never did even when all pundits were thinking in terms of wickets to fall and number of overs. Whenever they recovered from the fall of a wicket-they seldom allowed two wickets to fall quickly- they upped the tempo without appearing to do so. On two occasions when Ponting had Clarke and Warne for company, there were hints of a third possibility. That is cricket all about. Great skills and grit making anything possible.

England is certainly more balanced than Australia. And the man who makes all the difference is Flintoff. He gives Vaughan the comfort of batting deep up to number seven without sacrificing the rare advantage of deploying five frontline bowlers. Which is a privilege that very few captains get. What an advantage it is to have a player who throws the ball away after ripping the batting apart and puts on the pads to hammer a quick fifty to put his team ahead and to give it extra time to run through the opposition a second time!

So the odds are slightly in England’s favor. All that they have to do is to keep up the level of intensity. But even after three tests and even under the threat of being labeled a Kangaroo-fan, I feel the series is not yet over. Two more tests and we may be in for some more unexpected twists and turns.