Australia must learn from the lessons of past Ashes contests early enough to mean they can succeed even if England do play well, as they are doubtless likely to do again this series
Daniel Brettig15-Jul-2015A couple of past Ashes series have been referenced an awful lot this week. The first is 2005, that cricketing utopia of a decade ago when the game was watched by millions in Britain rather than thousands and each Test was a twist in a winding and endlessly exciting narrative. England lost the first Test at Lord’s but won the series.Another year that has come up almost as often is 1997, the last time Australia won an Ashes series from behind. It was the last summer of Britpop, that of Princess Diana’s death, and a dominant year for Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and, of all batsmen, Matthew Elliott.The most oft-quoted lesson of that series appears to be that after a heavy loss at Edgbaston in the first Test, Mark Taylor’s Australians resolved not to be carried away by their sluggish start and backed themselves in to be the better team over the remaining five Tests. This reading is certainly favoured by the current side. They appear set to name an unchanged bowling attack while adding the youth and vigour of Mitchell Marsh in place of Shane Watson, he of the 29 lbws and almost as many chances at the selection table.Glenn McGrath has recalled the “fifth” day of the match, when instead of trying to bowl England out in the fourth innings the bowlers were sent for centre wicket practice under the eye of the coach Geoff Marsh, after Mike Atherton’s side had wrapped up a nine-wicket victory in a flurry of strokes on the fourth evening. “After the Test finished we went back out and had a centre wicket,” McGrath recalled at a Hardys Wine function. “We didn’t have batsmen there. We just came off our long runs and bowled a fuller length. That’s what ‘Swamp’ said – we just bowled too short. We bowled a fuller length, better lines, better areas – and identified what we did wrong.”We came here to Lord’s and bowled a lot better and I was lucky to pick up a few that first day and the rest of that series was history.”History is not all grand sweep and brilliant individual displays. A most understated change to the team after Edgbaston was the inclusion of the Victorian seamer Paul Reiffel, who proved to be a role player of tremendous value. At Edgbaston, quite apart from hitting the wrong lengths, Australia’s bowlers had no control over the scoreboard. A young Jason Gillespie was expensive, then injured. Reiffel had not even been in the initial squad, only called on when Andy Bichel had to withdraw through his own injury. So shocked was Reiffel to be omitted from the Ashes 17 that he briefly considered retirement. So grateful were Australia to have him for the second Test and beyond that many players cited his inclusion as the turning point.As McGrath was taking 8 for 38 from the Pavilion End, Reiffel was keeping the batsmen deathly quiet from the Nursery. He popped up repeatedly over the next four matches, taking the odd but invariably important wicket. As vitally, his lower order runs enabled Australia to scrape up enough runs on a series of sporting pitches – 176 at 59.66 placed him at the top of the series averages.This is all to say that in England, the bowling attack need not be composed of the fastest bowlers, or the tallest. A combination of skills and experience is vital, as McGrath, Reiffel, Warne and the fit-again Jason Gillespie were to show. Australia’s yearning to attack through their quicks is understandable but it is not the only way for them to succeed – Peter Siddle might well play the Reiffel role should he be given the chance.Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Marsh would comprise a seam attack with the potential to bowl England out for 150, but also to concede another 350-odd on day one. There is also very little knowledge among them about how to bowl successfully at Lord’s, something Siddle, Ryan Harris and the assistant coach Craig McDermott can only provide at breaks in play. Siddle’s inclusion would provide balance that was missing in Cardiff.Making adjustments is something the Australians must do after Cardiff. “I get a sense,” the captain Michael Clarke said, “that we need to turn things around right now, in this Test match.” In 2005 after the contest turned England’s way, Ricky Ponting’s team persisted with their habitual aggression and brio almost until it was too late. It was not until The Oval, their last chance, that a less domineering method was tried, particularly by the batsmen.Matthew Hayden had played the bully so successfully for the previous four years that he had almost forgotten another way. After a series in which he seemed forever to be driving to catching men in the covers or edging an expansive drive at the reverse swinging ball, Hayden finally tried a more modest method at the Oval, and scrapped his way to a hundred in the company of Justin Langer.The change in mindset, geared less at bulldozing England than taking the game as deep into day five as possible, almost brought Australia victory as Michael Vaughan’s team suffered last day nerves. As it was, Shane Warne (and Hayden) dropped Kevin Pietersen early, leaving the South African talent the chance to make the day his own.So it was that in 1997 Australia adjusted in time, and in 2005 they failed to do so. This time around, Australia must heed the lessons of these past contests early enough to mean they can succeed even if England do play well, as they are doubtless likely to do again this series. To win without needing to adapt at all would be a mighty achievement, but also an unlikely one.