The Ashes Blog

“We need to not get mentally scarred, saying Australia are unbeatable, because it’s going to be a different story in 2009, and different personnel.

We have got to prove to the guys on the tour, to ourselves, that we can beat Australia.”
- Matthew Hoggard

The English players are a depressed lot at the moment, and they desperately need a win in one of these final two games. If they can do that, they will go into the 2009 series with a largely unchanged squad and they’ll feel OK about themselves.

But if Australia are able to pull off a 5-0 whitewash, then England really will be scarred. The damage will be severe, and it will take a lot of work, and a fair bit of help from the team psychologist, to get them into the right frame of mind to face Australia in 2009. England may gain some confidence from the fact that Australia will be going through a redevelopment phase in the next two years, but they will also know that it has been the guys who will still be playing for Australia in the next Ashes series – Ponting, Hussey, Clark – who have put in the match-winning performances. Warne and McGrath have given some pretty significant contributions this summer, but they have not done it alone, and England know that. The loss of Australia’s two superstars will have an impact, but I think Australia will have a pretty solid recovery.

Australia: 5/312

Following the example of Pietersen and Collingwood, the Aussie pair of Ponting and Hussey put on a batting show with a 192 run partnership. The Australian captain knocked up his 33rd Test century, and is now Australia’s most prolific century-maker. It was his 7th for 2006, and he can thank Ashley Giles for giving him the opportunity. The English spinner dropped a fairly easy chance on the deep square leg boundary when Ponting was just 35 and the Australians were already 3 wickets down with just 78 runs on the board. Did Ashley Giles drop England’s chance at victory?

Hayden and Martyn were both dismissed cheaply early on in the day, and both will be under pressure to keep their spot in the team. Hayden will probably be ok for a little while yet, though Martyn may have to make room for the return of Shane Watson for the Perth Test.

At the close of play it was Michael Clarke and Adam Gilchrist at the crease, and is as nor the norm with England, the Aussie keeper was under attack from the start with the English quicks coming at him from around the wicket. So far Gilly has been able to hold them at bay and look almost comfortable. He’ll need to stay in there for quite a while on day four if he’s to help his side close in on England’s formidable total.

As for England, today was a pretty good effort from (almost) all of them. Hoggard was brilliant with the ball, taking 4 wickets, Harmison looked to be in control, and Flintoff led well with some effective bowling changes and field placements. They’ll be feeling pretty good about themselves, but they haven’t yet won this Test. Apart from the first hour or so with the new ball, it’s pretty difficult to get a wicket on this deck, so they’ll need to do well if they want to grab another 15 Aussie wickets before the end of the day on Tuesday. Frankly, I don’t think they can do it.

I thought it would be interesting to do a statistical comparison of the two sides to see how they will fare against each other, statistically speaking. What I’ve done is add up the batting averages for all 11 players in each side to give a team batting average. I’ve then added up the bowling averages for Australia and England, and this gives us a team bowling average. To the Australian batting averages I added the England team bowling average to give a final total (and vice versa for England). So if a side has a very good, and therefore low, bowling average then they won’t be adding too many runs to the oppositions total team average, so it seems to me like a fair comparison: Read the rest of this entry »