Six and Out - Some Serious Cricket

Ashes backlash begins

by SixandOut on December 5th, 2006

Wow, there are some angry people out there. No more than a nanosecond after England snatched defeat in the 2nd test of the Ashes, and the hands are out and the gloves most definitely are off. Visit any sports website, news website, forum, messageboard, chatroom and pretty much any blog and the vultures are already tearing in to anything and everything England. People are simply up in arms over the debacle. Ben Dirs, live commenting on the match, finished with:

Jones drops an inside edge off Anderson. I’m not bothered, I don’t even like cricket. Hussey then swings Anderson away for four before pushing one into the covers to complete a crushing six-wicket victory.

That was the biggest load of rubbish I have ever seen. Lots of Aussies going berserk in Adelaide, lots of Englishmen looking like they’ve arrived home to find the French doors have been smashed and their new plasma TV’s been stolen. Thanks for staying with me for the last 10 days - it’s been a mix of emotions, but mainly depression and boredom, with a bit of anger and embarrassment thrown in. I’m off to Venice this weekend though, that should be nice, they don’t even know what cricket is there. Bye.

And the fans of Test Match special were no less ashamed of their teams performances. Fortunately, though, due to the profanity filter, the worst words repeatedly uttered were “atrocious”, “abysmal” and “abject”. I would make a joke about all the words beginning with “a”, but then “spineless” has cropped up on more than one occasion.

Predictably, though, those with an axe to grind and have started calling for the heads of a few key personel of the England set up. Far and away first on the chopping block is England coach Duncan Fletcher. He is being criticised for many things, notably his team selection, his apparent lack of any cricketing knowledge whatsoever and his defensive and negative tactics:

• This drivel from Fletcher about batting down to number 8.
• Fletcher is too conservative and now that has cost us the Ashes
• For the first time Fletcher has to take some of the blame
• Will Fletcher admit he got it wrong? I doubt it

I’ve seen calls for Fletcher to resign - or be sacked. Some people are also advocating sweeping changes to the side. The debate over Read/Jones and Giles/Panesar has rared up again, not to mention cutting any of Strauss, Cook and Anderson from the side. The irate pundits seem to be in favour of bringing in Mahmood, Panesar and Read convinced that had these players been picked from the start that things would have gone completely differently.

“My gramps just wanted to get this in: ‘Giles is the worst spinner in Tests ever. Gramps should know, he’s pushing 90…’”

According to some, a half-fit Vaughan and Simon Jones on crutches would be better than the current lineup. A lot of people are rueing Strauss’s early and incorrect second innings dismissal. Most are blaming the loss on Giles’s first innings drop of Ponting. King Freddie has had his captaincy questioned, but for the mostpart has come through relatively unscathed.

My verdict?

Without wishing to sound like I’m on the fence, but I think it’s impossible to pin this defeat on an individual. I believe a lot of mistakes have been made all over the place, each one culminating in this epic loss.

So here are my thoughts:

1. Fletcher has made errors in selection but he can’t be blamed for batsmen, such as Strauss and Cook, failing to score runs
2. The likes of Giles and Jones shouldn’t be expected to clean up the top order’s mistakes and relied on to score big runs
3. Fletcher’s plan to have Giles and Jones in on the strength of their batting was erroneous, since so far they’ve given no sign that they could have done any better than their replacements
4. It’s impossible to say whether Panesar and/or Read would have had a significant or sufficient impact on the game to alter the outcome
5. Neither Giles nor Jones have vindicated their inclusion in the side
6. Panesar is almost certainly not the answer to England’s problems. Despite showing some excellent form in the series he has played in, were he to be included in the side now, the amount of hype and buildup surrounding him, not to mention the not inconsiderable amount of barracking from the Australians will affect his performance
7. He probably couldn’t do a lot worse than Giles, though
8. Flintoff’s captaincy has been uninspired
9. Flintoff’s captaincy has been detrimented by the overall poor performances by and lack of support from his bowlers
10. Strauss wouldn’t necessarily have done any better as captain, but it perhaps would have eased the pressure on Fred to allow him to think more about his batting
11. One or two players have had moments of genius, but moments alone do not win 5 day test matches
12. Fletcher truly is in between a rock and a hard place - either make big changes and risk the team getting much worse, or not make the changes and see no improvement in England’s fortune. Either way he’s going to cop a lot of stick over the coming weeks
13. Fletcher will certainly not be England coach beyond this series
14. England as a unit have not significantly changed from the 90’s era where losing was par for the course, despite some successes in recent times

I could go on and on. There is no easy solution to the problem. Despite the impossible situation that England now find themselves in, I’m certainly no fair weather fan and I’m still behind England. I’m certainly not cancelling my subscription to Sky Sports or complaining about being let down having spent my hard earned money on a holiday to Australia like a lot of “fans” I’ve seen.

I’m still clutching on to that last glimmer of hope that England might feasibly snatch a draw from the series. As this test match has shown, anything is possible.

Share This

Related Stories

• ICC Champions trophy news
• Ahead of Perth
• Major grounds in Test argument
• Alex says it best
• Inzy to learn fate by Friday

POSTED IN: Cricket