"The fast, well-directed short delivery may be good theatre and an important tool, but it is the pitched-up sucker-ball that is the consistent wicket-taker."
Wednesday 13 December 2017 17:34, UK
Using an old boating tale, Mike Selvey urges England to tinker with their top seven as they bid to keep their Ashes hopes afloat at a ground where they have been repeatedly up the creek...
'Abandon hope all ye who enter here' was the message that greeted condemned prisoners as they were transported by boat from the Thames into the Tower of London and ultimately to the block.
Hope will be in short supply, too, when the England team enter the gates of the WACA for the final time in an Ashes Test. They have been besieged by an Australian team which is modest in comparison to its illustrious predecessors under the leadership of Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke, but, with a fine and fully-functioning all-round bowling attack, has played above itself.
The cocksure confidence of Steve Smith's side has inflated with each match, while England have been battered, competing at times but ultimately overwhelmed on the field. They have been humiliated off it, too, where, beyond the extreme seriousness of the Ben Stokes incident, small indiscretions, juvenile errors of judgement, have been seized upon and amplified to a ridiculous level, bringing disproportionate reaction. Pretty it has not been.
In spite of all this, the England team still speak fine words of history-making and comebacks, but if there remains genuine belief in the dressing room, then surely it does not extend to those who follow the game: history suggested that the loss in Brisbane was an almost insurmountable hurdle; that in Adelaide, where England were considered to have their best chance, catastrophic.
As far as England and history are concerned, the WACA, whether the iron-hard pitch of yore - so rapid that a side could have racked up a decent score in byes to the wicketkeeper had they a mind to, so far back did he stand - or the calmer version of more recent vintage, has been a place to be avoided.
Of the 13 times the sides have met there, England have won only the once, and that, in 1978/9, as the second of a six-match series against an Australian team weakened significantly by the demands of World Series Cricket. The last seven matches have been heavy defeats, even in the middle of Andrew Strauss's triumphant 2010/11 expedition.
WACA-ritis does, though, appear to be an English affliction. Some other teams appear to fare rather better. In seven matches in the last decade that do not involve England, Australia have lost four - three of them to South Africa and one India - and drawn one against New Zealand.
Quite why this might be is hard to pinpoint, except that as a starting point England bowlers have never really come to terms with the strategy of specifically bowling there rather than the nibbly pitches of home. Five wickets in an innings have been rare from England teams, with, in this millennium, Craig White (5-127 in 2002/3), Monty Panesar (5-92 in 2006/7, a rare spinner's triumph) and Chris Tremlett (5-87 in 2010/11) managing it.
In essence, as far as seamers are concerned, the pace in the pitch (and it still has good carry even if it is relative now) means that the slips come into play more with catches staying above ground longer. But it also means that a good length, that which can hit the top of off stump, such as the brilliant delivery with which Ryan Harris castled Alastair Cook first ball in England's previous match there, is necessarily further up.
So for the bowler, a batsman has to be pushed back to accommodate this, which, of course, leaves them vulnerable to precisely such a delivery. The fast, well-directed short delivery may be good theatre and an important tool, but it is the pitched-up sucker-ball that is the consistent wicket-taker.
Australian batsmen, especially those from Western Australia, know that with such a true bounce, it is possible to leave, with confidence, deliveries that are only fractionally short of a length, irrespective of the line. They understand that visiting pace bowlers, seduced by the carry into believing themselves to be a little more macho than they might be, habitually waste their effort in pitching too short.
But they are disdainful, too, of taking on the short ball unless well into a big innings and instead are looking to come forward. In 2010/11, for example, Mike Hussey, in scoring 61 and 116 gave a masterclass in how to bat there. Again this is a lesson that England batsmen have never quite absorbed: in the last three decades, only Graham Thorpe, who made 123 in 1994/5, Cook (116 in 2006/7) and Stokes (120 in 2013/4) have made Perth centuries, and both those of Cook and Stokes were in the fourth innings when the result had all but been decided.
To try and halt the Australian momentum now is a monumental task. All the off-field shenanigans, and even the reported stuff on the field, has been camouflage for the fact that England have been out-batted and, aside from one Jimmy Anderson masterclass under the Adelaide lights, out-bowled.
Two Australians, Steve Smith in Brisbane and Shaun Marsh in Adelaide, have produced genuine match-winning innings based on the fundamental principles of a sound game-plan and 'batting time'. By bowling as a unit, Australia have given the England batsmen little respite, with, aside from the trio of pacemen, Nathan Lyon reducing a plethora of left handers almost to petrification and ultimately dismissal.
Four England batsmen have registered half-centuries but none has been converted into three figures, the highest score being James Vince's 83 in Brisbane, an innings now looking anomalous rather than a beacon for the series.
For England to compete in this match, they must, at the very least, try something different. Certainly to keep the unsuccessful things the same, and hope for a different outcome, as Albert Einstein never really did say, is a definition of insanity.
A problem, though, is that the players England fielded in the Adelaide Test might just be the best that they have available to them. The only reserve batsman in the squad is Gary Ballance, and if ever there was a player unsuited to the WACA and the Australian attack it would be a left-hander susceptible to the full delivery outside off stump and the short ball from round the wicket into the ribcage.
Bringing in a tyro from the Lions squad would surely be a leap of faith too far. Would Ben Foakes fare better than one of the failing batsmen? Hard to say he could do worse than Vince. But he has had no cricket to speak of, and would have to keep wicket presumably, which although it would theoretically free up Jonny Bairstow, that is surmising that Bairstow wants to be set free from the gloves.
The bowling is the best unit they have. Jake Ball floundered in Brisbane, and talk of Mark Wood is just ridiculous, as if a bowler with no match fitness and pace that has been exaggerated into something it is not, can come into the intensity of a Test match to bowl in 40 degree heat and create mayhem. Shane Warne's lack of success at the WACA says that this is no place to blood Mason Crane.
So what, with the same players, can England do? In his brilliant book about the infamous 1987 University Boat Race mutiny, the Oxford coach, Dan Topolski, tells a small story.
In the few months leading up to the race, a coterie of top-flight American rowers, rebelling against a punishing regime, were discharged, with an inexperienced crew taking their places.
Shortly before the race, in practice on the Tideway, Topolski was frustrated by the sluggish progress of the boat. So he tinkered with the order and on the next outing the same oarsmen made the boat sing: shortly after, Oxford went on to win a memorable race.
Here, then, is a plan: Malan to No 3, Bairstow to No 5, Vince No 6, and Moeen No 7. It still may not work, but the status quo is not an option. Far from singing, this boat is on the verge of sinking.
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