It Could Be Said #44 How The Ashes Were Lost
As the Aussie's make it ten years of hurt in The Ashes, is Bazball still gleaming?
It seems apt that the sporting summer effectively ends in the wet and wind of a gloomy Manchester. An Ashes series between Australia and England that had been threatening to somehow eclipse the mighty 2005 blockbuster as the greatest of all-time, instead ended on a wimper.
The reality is that England did well to come as close as they did given they basically got only three days play given some brief rain delays during the first three days, and the persistently slow overrate throughout the match. As painful as it is, the Ashes were lost because England simply didn’t have a good enough side to beat the World Test Champions. That it was as close as it was, is again testament to the sheer bloody mindedness of Ben Stokes and his players.
The selection issues they were confronted were vast and varied. Take one that seems like a good news story; England had two men set batting records in the summer and winter respectively whilst batting at No 5. They tried to split the difference by having Johnny Bairstow pick up the gloves despite still recovering from a freak leg injury and not having kept for many years; a terrible combination given that he would have to rely on raw athleticism to mitigate for an understandably rusty technique. After an awkward performance against Ireland, he was genuinely abysmal for the first two matches and his drops directly cost England runs as the Australian batters often made full use of their second chances. It also robbed him off confidence with the bat. It’s surely not a coincidence that the first time he matched last summer’s ferocity was after he finally seemed comfortable with the gloves in the first innings at Old Trafford.
The sensible conclusion to draw from this is that they should have played Ben Foakes as wicketkeeper, at least until Bairstow had proven he was fit enough to do the job. But that would still leave unanswered the question as to how you fit both Bairstow and Harry Brooks in the same side. This issue was made all the harder by another of England’s walking wounded being the captain himself.
As last winter progressed it became more and more clear that Stokes’s troublesome knee issue had somehow gotten worse, with the poor man walking around like his Terry Funk in 1997. He went to the IPL but ended up becoming a glorified mascot for Chennai Super Kings, unable to play any role after the first two games. He didn’t bowl against Ireland and had to highly limit his contributions with the ball at Edgbaston and Lord’s. By the third test even that wasn’t possible.
This has been the dark matter of England’s selection policies throughout the series. If Ben Stokes can’t bowl, then the entire makeup of the side must change to accommodate him as a specialist batter. Before the Ashes, commentators such as George Dobell were suggesting moving him up the order but his performances this series show just how brilliant he can be at seizing control of a game from the middle-order. It’s reasonable to not want to weaken strength, and in any case, the top order has actually did pretty well this series, especially Zac Crawley.
In theory England got a lucky break when poor Jack Leach broke his back. Whilst Leach had been much improved under Ben Stokes, his recurring issues against left handers on non-spinning tracks would have made him very vulnerable against an Australian side dominated by southpaws. Stokes managed to persuade Moeen Ali to come out of Test retirement. Sadly, and I say this as someone who deeply loves Ali as a player and thinks he was badly messed around by England management in the past, it’s not worked. Having not bowled with the red ball for eighteen months he’s repeatedly struggled with his spinning finger that forced him off the field at Edgbaston and seemed to be bothering him again at Old Trafford. Meanwhile, only after a move up to No. 3 and a week’s batting practice could he finally produce batting of the quality he was once capable of.
England even struggled throughout the series to get their fast-bowling line-up right. Their two best bowlers this series only started playing in the third test due to concerns over their witness. But whilst one can understand not wanting to risk a fragile Mark Wood and Chris Woakes, holding players in reserve until you were already on the back foot is exactly the mistake that turned the last Ashes into a rout. Both men also strengthened England’s batting, with Foakes helping to restore some of the calm that England’s lower order had lacked since dropping Foakes.
If they had played the first two tests, I’m convinced England would have been going into the final Test slightly ahead rather than slightly behind. And a big reason why is because the other bowlers have often been dreadful throughout much of the series. Not only does he seem to be slightly off pace as he recovers from an injury, but Jimmy Anderson’s style of building pressure through economical line-and-length bowling doesn’t suit Stokes’s hyperactive captaincy. It was painful to watch him being forced to bowl bouncers during quiet passages of the second and fourth tests, a vintage race car being asked to tow a trailer whilst the vans took a breather. The only reason to think this series might not be the end for him is that his successor had an even worse series with Ollie Robinson’s ugly belligerence towards Usman Khawaja somehow being the high point of an Ashes that saw him failing to bowl out the Australian tale at Edgbaston, saying silly stuff in the press between the first and second tests, bowling slower than an ECB investigation into racism at Lord’s, and then going off injured at Headingly. We unfortunately seem to be back to square one with Robinson in terms of his attitude and fitness. Broad has done better than either of the other two men chosen to spearhead England’s pace attack but has similarly looked pretty toothless at times.
When you look at everything that has been thrown at the Bazball Mojo Dojo Casa House, it’s amazing that the series has been as close as it was. Whilst many, including myself, have often focused on the mistakes made in Edgbaston as being where the Ashes were lost, it’s worth remembering that the reason it looked like England should win was that they somehow snaffled five Aussie wickets for just 51 runs on the third day to grab an improbable first innings lead. Likewise, England failed to turn up on the first day at Lord’s and were then reduced to just bowling bouncers that were more irritating than dangerous, but Stokes still nearly won the game by himself single-handedly. And they may well have been a session away from inflicting an innings or heavy wickets defeat on the Test World Champions.
But in reality, they lost at Edgbaston and Lord’s, and drew at Old Trafford. Because the problem with relying on geniuses to improvise solutions to structural problems is that it allows the structural problems to fester and ultimately overwhelm them. The many issues in the England side should have been addressed through better preparation.
No one should begrudge England players the chance to go earn huge money in the IPL but surely it would have made more sense to pay them the extra money necessary to keep them in England for this May, especially given how much money the Ashes generates for the English game. Or alternatively delay the series by a month so England had time to prepare in June rather than rushing everything so The Hundred has August to itself. A series before the Ashes against a higher calibre of opponents than Ireland would have given England the chance to put everyone through their paces and work out what their best side was. They could have tried to persuade Moeen Ali to make a comeback on more than a few days’ notice, so that he had time to get match fit for the series. Likewise, they could have given bowlers like Sam Curran or Rehan Ahmed overs with the red ball so they had more options available to them. Such a series would have given Bairstow time to get match fit for the Ashes, or if he wasn’t ready, forced England to prepare their Plan B. And even if he was playing, being around the England dressing room would have better focused on Ben Stokes on thinking through his approach to defeating the Australia.
I’m sure the idea that England would have taken time and spent money on preparing properly for the Ashes sounds ridiculous but that raises real questions about how hungry England are to overturn what has become a poor record in Ashes cricket. England have not just failed to win a series since 2015, they’ve failed to take a lead since then either. Indeed, if Australia win at the Oval, they will have won as many Tests in one series as England has won in four.
Their next series is India, awkwardly sandwiched between two white-ball world cups. With so little red-ball cricket that could prepare players for Indian conditions, it’s hard to see how England won’t be left scratching around to build a side come January from the same odds and sods that were found wanting here, only this time in much tougher conditions. Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have achieved great things these past eighteen months, but there’s a real danger that it will prove to be a magical twelve months rather than an enduring dynasty.